Collected here are “Franz Kafka,” “Karl Kraus,” and “The Author as Producer,” the meditation “A Berlin Chronicle,” discussions of photography and the French writer, and previously untranslated pieces on such subjects as language and memory, theological criticism and literary history, astrology and the newspaper, Valery, Hitler, and Mickey Mouse.

The Destructive Character, 1931 In Parallel with My Actual Diary Criticism as the Fundamental Discipline of Literary History Critique of the New Objectivity We Ought to Reexamine the Link between Teaching and Research Hofmannsthal and Aleco Dossena Left-Wing Melancholy Theological Criticism Karl Kraus Literary History and the Study of Literature German Letters May-June 1931 Unpacking My Library Franz Kafka: Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer Diary from August 7, 1931, to the Day of My Death Little History of Photography Paul Valery The Lisbon Earthquake The Destructive Character Reflections on Radio Mickey Mouse In Almost Every Example We Have of Materialist Literary History The Task of the Critic Ibizan Sequence, 1932 Experience On Ships, Mine Shafts, and Crucifixes in Bottles On the Trail of Old Letters A Family Drama in the Epic Theater The Railway Disaster at the Firth of Tay Privileged Thinking Excavation and Memory Oedipus, or Rational Myth On Proverbs Theater and Radio Ibizan Sequence A Berlin Chronicle Spain, 1932 Light from Obscurantists The Handkerchief In the Sun The Rigorous Study of Art Hashish in Marseilles The Eve of Departure On Astrology "Try to Ensure that Everything in Life Has a Consequence" Notes (IV) Thought Figures, 1933 The Lamp Doctrine of the Similar Short Shadows (II) Kierkegaard Stefan George in Retrospect Agesilaus Santander (First Version) Agesilaus Santander (Second Version) Antitheses Concerning Word and Name On the Mimetic Faculty Thought Figures Little Tricks of the Trade Experience and Poverty The Author's Producer, 1934 Once Is as Good as Never The Newspaper Venal but Unusable The Present Social Situation of the French Writer The Author as Producer Notes from Svendborg, Summer 1934 Hitler's Diminished Masculinity Franz Kafka A Note on the Texts Chronology, 1927-1934 Index