Max Horkheimer's voice goes digital
Some 100 recordings of Max Horkheimer's speeches, lectures and interviews from the period 1938-1972 are amongst Max Horkheimer's estate. These recordings provide a key to the history of the Frankfurter School and expose new biographical and hitherto unknown details of the famous Frankfurt Sociologist.
For example, a recording from 15th August 1938 captures Max Horkheimer's birhday greetings which he espresses on the occasion of his father's 80th birthday.
In another recording from 1971 Horkheimer reports comprehensivley on his childhood and youth in Zuffenhausen near Stuttgart. Furthermore, academic presentations on religion and philosophy (1966), on civilisation (1967), congress papers from Rome, Venice and Lugano (1968-1971), talks on the Critical Theory (1969) on "Pessimism", on the price of Enlightenment and on marriage and family (1970). The recordings are authentic witnesses to the mode of speech and provide interesting insight into the atmosphere of the early 60's and 70's .
All these documentations ( from early records to tapes through to cassette tapes) were not only under the threat of aging but the equipment required to play the recordings were (becoming) obsolete. Thus, the following instructions are given on one of the records "do not use metal needles, use wooden or cactus needles only".
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| Max Horkheimer on assuming the office of the vice-chancellor at Frankfurt University in 1951 Photo: Archives Centre |
The Archive Centre has reacted to the imminent threat of these unique examples of cultural heritage by digitalisation. The surface of the tapes were starting to separate so that the recordings would soon be lost over the next few years and no longer reproducible.
Digiltalisation has enabled the analog sound signals now to be turned into high resolution audio data ( wav-format/ 96 kHz /24 bit ) and stored on an archival mass storage space at the UB. In addition, mp3 data will automatically be generated in the Archive Centre for users.
The mp3 digital recordings are accessible on a special pc with headphones in the Archives Centre together with the documents of the Frankfurt School which are also archived there.
These and numerous other original documents of the Archives Centre can be researched from Monday - Friday from 9.30-16.30 in accordance with the user rules and provided advanced notification has been given.
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zuletzt geändert am 26. September 2022
