Große Zeiten kleines Glück / Great Times Little Happiness
Not much is known about Vilém Flusser’s childhood years in Prague, where he lived with his family and attended the Deutsches Realgymnasium, a school in Zboroská street. One of his classmates and friends was a girl born in 1919. Eighty years later, she told her extraordinary life to Gerold Tietz who transformed it into the novel Große Zeiten Kleines Glück (Great Times Little Happiness). Flusser who is called Jakob is described as a very smart boy at school – who could even be a little intimidating to his classmates every now and then. He used to sit in the first row – and when Rita, the protagonist of the story, had to do a presentation in front of the class, she always felt particularly observed and critically challenged by his vigilant presence. The different excerpts published here allow a rough insight into the story line and thus also into a part of Vilém Flusser’s childhood.
Flusser e Kafka: diálogos em torno de aparelhos, funcionários e programas / Flusser and Kafka: Dialogues on Apparatuses, Functionaries and Programs
The article explores the dialogue between Flusser and Kafka, around the concepts of apparatus, functionary, and program. Starting from the understanding of Prague as a city that builds bridges, the text understands Flusser's thought as a bridge between past and future, referring to its genealogical beginnings in Prague’s literature. In a cross-reading of texts by the two authors, the concepts of apparatus, functionary and program emerge in their different aspects. The dialog with Kafka reveals an important source of Flusser’s thinking.
Construindo pontes: Ser judeu para os outros
This text examines Flusser’s conception of two kinds of Jews – one being a Jew to other Jews and the other a Jew to the world. Flusser opts for second possibility. For him, then, to be a Jew means to build bridges. Writing is a way of building bridges between one’s own Jewish experience and universal philosophical thought. The article focuses on Flusser’s correspondence with Milton Vargas and David Flusser in the two last years of his life, showing how his thoughts of impending death and the anguish of the Holocaust transformed his personal experience.
Flusser-Quellen. Teil I: Vorwort des Vilém Flusser Archivs, Oktober 2017
Flusser-Quellen (Flusser-Sources) is a comprehensive list of all of Vilém Flusser’s texts published between 1960 and 2002. It includes essays, book chapters, books CDs in seven different languages. It also contains a list of all interviews and videos directly related to his person and his work. Flusser-Quellen was developed by Klaus Sander in collaboration with the Vilém Flusser Archive and Andreas Müller-Pohle’s European Photography. The original plan was to publish this material as a volume of Müller-Pohle’s Editions of Flusser, together with a CD-ROM version. The material can be accessed here: http://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/1485097/d85714e287d539db39da46f0e5198b20.pdf?1512484296