Herbert Marcuse Official Homepage
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What's New
2024-05-20 |
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New videos from the 2023 IHMS Conference in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany
IHMS Conference
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2023-08-17 |
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2023 IHMS Conference “Critical Theory in Motion: Dance into Multidimensionality”
IHMS Conference
Conference schedule now available
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2022-01-03 |
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New article: How the 1960s institutionalized us
Kimball, Roger
Eros and Civilization
Long March
narcissism
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2021-12-27 |
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New article: What Herbert Marcuse Got Right — and Wrong
Cohan, Jeremy
Serby, Benjamin
One-Dimensional Man
Jacobin Magazine
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2021-12-18 |
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New article: For Karl Marx, Alienation Was Central to Understanding Capitalism
Musto, Marcello
alienation
Jacobin Magazine
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2020-10-19 |
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NY Times Profile of Angela Davis
Davis, Angela
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2019-10-26 |
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2019 IHMS Conference "Critical Theory in Dark Times"
IHMS Conference
Conference abstracts (and a video) now available
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2019-09-18 |
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New article: Political Positivism and Political Existentialism. Revisiting Herbert Marcuse
Koutsogiannis, Alex
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2019-09-05 |
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Portuguese translation of 1960 article "From Ontology to Technology"
Portuguese
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2019-03-03 |
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Der Tagesspiegel Interview with Peter and Harold Marcuse
burial
Marcuse, Peter
Marcuse, Harold
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2019-03-02 |
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New book: Routledge Companion to the Frankfurt School
Frankfurt School
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2019-03-01 |
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Dissonância special issue on Herbert Marcuse (in Portuguese)
Portuguese
Abromeit, John D.
Nobre, Marcos
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2019-02-25 |
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Notes on Philosophy: reprint on 1963 essay in the Brandeis yearbook
Brandeis
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2019-01-20 |
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New Anthology about One-Dimensional Man 50 Years On (2017)
One-Dimensional Man
Maley, Terry
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2018-09-21 |
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New book in Croatian by Maroje Višić: Critique and Resistance
Croatian
Višić, Maroje
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2018-08-31 |
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New book in Italian by Renata Bascelli: For a concrete philosophy
Italian
Bascelli, Renata
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2018-06-10 |
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New book by Charles Reitz: Ecology and Revolution
Reitz, Charles
ecology
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2018-06-09 |
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Panel discussion of "Attempt at Liberation" at Linkes Forum
Linkes Forum
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2018-04-15 |
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Lecture by Peter-Erwin Jansen: The absurd rationality of progress
Jansen, Peter-Erwin
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More... |
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Herbert Marcuse was born in Berlin on July 19, 1898. After completing his Ph.D. thesis at the University of Freiburg in 1922, he moved to Berlin, where he worked in the book trade. He returned to Freiburg in 1929 to write a habilitation (professor's dissertation) with Martin Heidegger. In 1933, since he would not be allowed to complete that project under the Nazis, Herbert began work at the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, a Marxist-oriented think-tank (as we might say today).
He emigrated from Germany that same year, going first to Switzerland, then the United States, where he became a citizen in 1940. During World War II he worked for the US Office of Strategic Services (forerunner of the CIA), analyzing intelligence reports about Germany (1942-45-51).
In 1952 Herbert began a university teaching career as a political theorist, first at Columbia and Harvard, then at Brandeis from 1954 to 1965, and finally (already retirement-age), at the University of California, San Diego.
His critiques of capitalist society (especially his 1955 synthesis of Marx and Freud, Eros and Civilization, and his 1964 book One-Dimensional Man) resonated with the concerns of the leftist student movement in the 1960s. Because of his willingness to engage seriously with (and support) student protesters, Herbert soon became known as "the father of the new left" (a term he disliked and rejected). He had many speaking engagements in the US and Europe in the late 1960s and in the 1970s. He died on July 29, 1979, after suffering a stroke during a visit to Germany.
Where are Herbert's papers?
- Herbert's letters and papers are held by the Marcuse
archive at the Archivzentrum of the University Library in Frankfurt, Germany (Universitätsbibliothek). Peter-Erwin Jansen, the publisher of Herbert's papers in German, who lives in Frankfurt, can grant
permission to scholars to see limited-access materials. (For more information on Peter-Erwin, see the Nachgelassene
Schriften page.)
- 2013 note: several important collections of primary and secondary materials are becoming available in the US (such as the manuscript of One-Dimensional Man at Brandeis), and we are seeking to establish an archive or study center here as well.
Update 2015: Progress on creating an archive at Brandeis is well underway.
How can I obtain permission to publish some of Herbert's writings?
- Usually from the previous publisher. For hitherto unpublished materials,
see the Permission page.
Do you have photographs of Herbert that
be used for a publication, conference announcement, etc?
- Most photos on this site are scanned from various publications, or
are from nebulous internet sources, and we cannot offer rights to them.
- We do have a few personal/family snapshots, but these are not suitable for publications and we would probably
not give permission. If you have further questions, please email me: marcuse@history.ucsb.edu.
How did Herbert pronounce "Marcuse"?
- I'd write it phonetically (in US-English) [mahr KOO zeh], with the
emphasis on the middle syllable. That is the standard German pronunciation.
- As a member of Herbert's son Peter's family, we grew up in the US with
an anglicized pronunciation (which you'd hear on my answering machine,
phonetically [mar KYOOSS] (with the 'oo' long as in the word root) and the emphasis on the second syllable.
Are we related?
- Although Marcuse is by no means a common name, there are many thousands
of us. Some years ago the city of Berlin had a web site listing the names
of the city's Jewish citizens who were murdered under the Nazis. There
were 144 "Marcuses" on it, only a few of whom were related to
Herbert.
- I don't do genealogical research, and don't have a reliable family
tree to check. The best I can offer is the information on this site's page about
Herbert's father Carl Marcuse.
We know that Carl had siblings, but not who they were. We've been told
that the sexologist Max Marcuse (1877-1963) was Herbert's cousin, whereas
the literary scholar Ludwig Marcuse (1894-1971) was unrelated, as was the character actor Theo Marcuse (1920-1967).
We are in the process of revamping the Herbert Marcuse website. If you are having trouble finding
some of the original content, please try the
original page