Herbert Marcuse
(1898-1979)
Official Homepage

Site News (see also Old News page; current visitor statistics and interesting guestbook at bottom)

• Apr. 23, 2013: A new art book with quotations from Herbert's works was published in January:
  • Herbert Marcuse. Versprechen, dass es anders sein kann. Promise that it can be different; paintings: Antje Wichtrey, afterword by Peter-Erwin Jansen. Bilingual reprint of the one-of-a-kind art book by Antje Wichtrey about Hebert Marcuse. Edition Boot, Granada·Frankfurt, 2013, € 25 / $ 30.
  • The book can be purchased by contacting Peter-Erwin Jansen via email: petererwinjansen(a)aol.com.
  • You can see four of the 15 double page spreads at Anthe Wichtrey's website.
  • The quotation text in the sample image at right reads:
    [to be added]
• November 7-9, 2013: FIFTH BIENNIAL CONFERENCE of the International Herbert Marcuse Society at the University of Kentucky, Lexington. For information contact Professor Arnold L. Farr, Department of Philosophy, alfarr00@uky.edu, and see the International Herbert Marcuse Society website.
  • The Call for Papers (3 page pdf) is now available--abstracts are due May 1, 2013.
  • The conference theme is: "Emancipation, New Sensibility, and the Challenge of a New Era: Theory, Practice, and Pedagogy."
• April 6, 2013: another delayed addition to the Books About page:
  • 2011: Charles Reitz and Stephen Spartan, "Critical Work and Radical Pedagogy: Recalling Herbert Marcuse," 44pages; paper presented at the 2011 Critical Refusals conference of the International Herbert Marcuse Society. (pdf for on-screen; formatted for printing)
    Reitz wrote in Oct. 2011: "This is a discussion document that can also be seen as supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement through critical analysis and by invoking some of Herbert Marcuse's most radical statements and ideas."
• Feb. 6, 2013: In Fall 2011 a Finnish translation of Herbert's essay "Repressive Tolerance," 'Sortava suvaitsevaisuus,' was published in Paatos magazine (by students at the University of Tampere, Finland). My thanks to Mikko Niemelä for the translation and link. (In Dec. 2011 Mikko noted that Herbert's The Aesthetic Dimension had just been published in Finnish as well.)
• Feb. 4, 2013: I just came across a very interesting personal reminiscence by Jürgen Habermas about 2 seminal lectures by Herbert that Habermas heard in 1956 and 1964:
  • Jürgen Habermas, "Grossherzige Remigranten: Über jüdische Philosophen in der frühen Bundesrepublik. Eine persönliche Erinnerung," in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (July 2, 2011) .
    • Excerpt:
      "Die Veranstaltungsreihe [1956 Freud Vorlesungsreihen in Heidelberg und Frankfurt] schloss übrigens mit zwei Vorträgen eines Philosophen über «Die Idee des Fortschritts im Lichte der Psychoanalyse», die mich elektrisiert haben wie kaum ein Vortrag je vorher oder nachher. Damals sah ich Herbert Marcuse, der Gedanken aus seinem noch unveröffentlichten Buch «Eros and Civilization» vortrug, zum ersten Mal. Ich hatte erst zwei Monate zuvor meine Arbeit an dem Institut aufgenommen, aus dessen verschollener Vergangenheit mir nun, unerwartet und ohne dialektische Schnörkel, ein vital gegenwärtiger Geist entgegentrat. Das Bild, das wir uns aus den engagierten Zeiten der Studentenbewegung von Marcuse bewahren, blendet die Qualität des Wissenschafters aus, der in Freiburg eine solide philosophisches Ausbildung genossen hatte. Im Kreis der «alten» Frankfurter war Marcuse derjenige, der sich in seinen philosophischen Untersuchungen an konventionelle wissenschaftliche Massstäbe hielt – dafür ist «Reason and Revolution» das beste Beispiel. Ohne diese Qualität hätte Marcuse auch acht Jahre später mit seinem Vortrag über «Industrialisierung und Kapitalismus» unter den Jüngeren nicht das Echo finden können, auf das es mir in unserem wirkungsgeschichtlichen Kontext ankommt."
      Es folgt eine Beschreibung eines Vortrags von Herbert über Max Weber auf dem Heidelberger Soziologenkongress im Jahre 1964.

Archived Old News Page (history of this site going back to March 2001)

Frequently Asked Questions (back to top)

1. 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.)
2. How can I obtain permission to publish some of Herbert's writings?
   • Usually from the previous publisher. For hitherto unpublished materials, see the information on Herbert's son Peter's page; Peter is the literary executor.
3. Do you have photographs of Herbert that can 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 photographs from the 1930s (such as the one in his biography, below, standing next to the old car in Santa Monica) and 1950s (see the header of the Books About page), as well as a number from his 1979 funeral and 2003 burial. There are also a few personal/family snapshots on the Sophie and Ricky pages, but these are not suitable for publications and we would probably not give permission. If you have further questions, ask me: marcuse@history.ucsb.edu.
   • A note on the photo of Herbert among students at the Free University of Berlin at right: It was found in 2001 on the Copenhagen Goethe Institute website, from which it has since been removed. The Goethe Institute now has an image from a different vantage point. In 2011 an editor at Yale University Press tracked down the image owner:
     Ullstein bild: Bildnummer: 00003800 - Jung Datum: 01.01.1967 Bildgrösse: 3639x2784 Pixel
     The Ullstein caption dates it as "1967;" it may be May 1968 however.
     • See also this image held by the Bildarchiv preussischer Kulturbesitz (do a search there): June 3-4, 1972: Herbert reads a declaration of solidarity with his student Angela Davis, on the Opernplatz in Frankfurt, before a large crowd. From the German History in Documents site
   • Isolde Ohlbaum's portraits of Herbert are the best commercially available ones on the internet. (See image above right, in this page's header, and 2004 announcements.)
   • The UCSD library's collection has quite a few portraits and images of Herbert (278: most are newspaper clippings). They include 10 "informal" faculty portraits of Herbert in a suit in his office, taken by Gay Crawford on April 2, 1968. He's sitting (in his office presumably) in a shirt, tie and jacket. I like no. 8 with the mischevious smile best. A link for permissions accompanies the photos. The contact for permission to publish those photos (free for non-commercial uses) is:
     
     • Archives of Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library
       University of California, San Diego
       9500 Gilman Dr #0219
       La Jolla, CA 92093-0219
       Email: siolib2@sio.ucsd.edu
     • Other images are held by the
       Mandeville Special Collections Library
       UCSD Libraries 0175S
       9500 Gilman Drive
       La Jolla, CA 92093-0175
       Email: spcoll@ucsd.edu
4. 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.
   • Yourdictionary.com has audio (I'd put a bit more "zz" in the final s), while Allrefer, Answer.com and Infoplease have pronunciation guides.
   • 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 "QU"SS] (with the 'cu' pronounced like the letter "Q") and the emphasis on the second syllable.
5. 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).

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.

Herbert at a hearing where he testified in behalf of UCSD students. SDHS photo. from The Journal of San Diego History 47:4(2001) (link)

For more biographical information about Herbert, see: [back to navbar]

• a  short biography grandson Harold (the author of this page) prepared for a presentation at a screening of the documentary film Herbert's Hippopotamus in 1997 at UC Santa Barbara, where I teach 19th and 20th century German history.
   
• His own typescript Lebenslauf (CV) that was included in his 1922 dissertation at the University of Freiburg. (jpg image; html version; html with English translation; image of title page of dissertation) [from photocopies I made at the University of Freiburg library in the early 1980s]
  
• Available only on this site is a Sept. 1970 article by Michael G. Horowitz, "Portrait of the Marxist as an Old Trouper." This "personality profile" of Herbert was written by a former undergraduate student (1963-67) of Herbert's at Brandeis, after Herbert's April 1969 appearance at SUNY Old Westbury. It was published in Sept. 1970 in Playboy  magazine. Highlights: short biography with details about why Herbert left Brandeis, and a description of a meeting with students in 1969.
  
• ;-)  Of course you were wondering why he was called Marcuse? It's actually a Belgian-French abbreviation: "Mouvement autonome de réflexion critique à l’usage des survivants de l’économie" (Autonomous movement of critical reflection for use by survivors of the economy). See this anti-advertising manifesto [2006 version at web archive] by the "Group Marcuse," a group of politically engaged young sociologists, economists, philosophers, historians, psychologists and doctors (according to this review of their 2004 book De la Misere humaine en milieu publicitaire: Comment le monde se meurt de notre mode de vie [Human Misery in Advertising: How the World is Dying of Our Way of Life]).
  
• The Links Page on this site has annotated links to the best (and worst) biographical sites and texts available on the web.
  

A Film about Herbert (back to top) [back to navbar]

• See the Herbert's Hippotamus Page, as well as the Sound and Video Page.

Permission to publish Herbert's works (back to top)

• Herbert's letters and papers are held by the Marcuse archive at the City and University Library in Frankfurt, Germany (Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek). Peter-Erwin Jansen can grant permission to scholars to see limited-access materials. (see Nachgelassene Schriften page)
• Requests to publish any of Herbert's writings should be addressed to Peter Marcuse, Herbert's son, who is the literary executor of Herbert's estate, at pm35@columbia.edu.
• see Peter's page for the required permissions text, and more information about him

Other famous Marcuses of Herbert's generation (back to top) [back to navbar]

• The literary scholar Ludwig Marcuse (1894-1971) was, as far as we know, at best a distant relative. See USC's Feuchtwanger library page about him.
• The renowned sexologist Max Marcuse (1877-1963) may have been Herbert's cousin, according to archivist Haeberle at the Robert-Koch-Institut in Berlin, which maintains a very informative website about Max and other pioneers in the field.
  OCLC: Levy, Amihai.; Ohry, Abraham, "A forgotten giant: Dr Max Marcuse, one of the founders of the science of sexology," in: Adler Museum Bulletin Vol. 11, no. 3 (Nov. 1985).

hits since March 27, 2001

for a more detailed tracking of hits,
see Visitor Statistics Page

7700 on Mar. 27, 2002 [64/day]
7,700=21 hits/day first year
10,000 on 5/3/02 [62/day]
27,000 on Mar. 27, 2003
19,300=53 hits/day 2nd year
32,000 on 5/30/03 [87/day prev. month]
Herbert buried in Berlin, 7/18/03
38,000 on 7/26/03 [157/day since 7/1/03]
40,000 on 9/7/03 [70+/day recently]
50,000 on 1/18/04 [75/day]
56,300 on March 27, 2004
29,300=80 hits/day 3rd year
60,000 on May 3, 2004 [100/day]
70,000 on Sept. 24, 2004 [73.5/day]
84,000 on Jan. 5, 2005 [136/day]
35,250=96.6 hits/day in 2004
90,000 on Feb. 15, 2005 [146/day]
{ca, 1000 hits uncounted 3/4-10/05}
95,300 on March 27, 2005 [132/day]
40,000=109 hits/day 4th year
100,000 on Apr. 23, 2005 [175/day]
115,000 on Aug. 2, 2005 [125/day]
130,000 on Nov. 15, 2005 [202/day]
137,250 on Jan. 1, 2006 [103/day]
54,000=148 hits/day in 2005
165,200 on Aug. 6, 2006 [80/day]
182,300 on Dec. 31, 2006 [78/day]
45,050=123 hits/day in 2006
183,835 on 1/16/07 [96/day]
site down 2/10-17/07: 7days
200,695 on 6/26/07
[101/day, during radio broadcast]
200,900 24 hrs later [205/day]
217,510 on 12/31/07=79/day
35,210=98.4 hits/day in 2007
244,450 on 10/8/08=162/day
282,550 on 1/1/10=86/day
299,000 on 10/16/10=68/day
304,895 on 1/1/11=61/day in 2010
312,524 on 4/16/11= 72/day
318,724 on 7/24/11=62/day
326,370 on 10/25/11 =74/day
334,620 on 2/16/12=72 /day
345,110 on 7/23/12=66/day
346,219 on 8/17/12=44/day
353,510 on 11/30/12= 69/day
356,400 on 1/4/13=83/day
70.1/day in 2011+2012
365,714 on 4/23/2013=176/day
367,000 on 5/6/2013=100/day