Professor of political theory at the City University of New York and co-editor of DISSENT magazine.
The chronicler of the life and ideas of Lucien Goldmann recalls what drew him to the writings of the Romanian-French Marxist at the tail-end of the countercultural revolution; how he gradually reconstructed Goldmann’s intellectual biography throughout the next two decades; and how after 1989 he was able to piece together the missing parts of his subject’s early life.
To Mitchell Cohen, emancipation is more than just a transfer from one state or society to another. It is defined by the world you leave behind and the world you enter, and your status in both places. To understand the Jewish experience of emancipation, one must try to understand both the individual’s transformation and the reaction of the larger receiving group.
