This collection examines the life and thought of Agnes Heller, who rose to international acclaim as a Marxist dissident in Eastern Europe. Heller went on to develop one of the most comprehensive oeuvres in contemporary philosophy, putting forward a distinctive ethical theory and developing insightful analyses of a vast range of topics. Here, philosophers, sociologists, journalists and political scientists assess different elements of Heller's work, highlight relevant shifts within that work, and address its intrinsic consistency.

This collection of essays examines the life and thought of Agnes Heller, who rose to international acclaim as a Marxist dissident in Eastern Europe, then went on to develop one of the most comprehensive oeuvres in contemporary philosophy, putting forward a distinctive ethical theory and analyses of a vast range of topics covering most every philosophical area. Here, philosophers, sociologists, journalists, and political scientists contextualize, compare and assess different elements of Heller's work; the collection as a whole highlights relevant shifts within that work as well as its intrinsic consistency. Essays in the collection address the relationship between philosophy, political practice and everyday life, Heller's theory of modernity and her ethical theory, her recent scholarship on comedy and the Biblical book of Genesis, her theories of radical needs and radical politics, her aesthetic theory, and questions about her relationship to feminist theory. The collection includes Heller's reflections on the collected essays, as well as an early essay on her mentor LukOcs that exposes her own steadfast engagement with certain practical and philosophical issues throughout her life's work.

Chapter 1 Editor's Introduction
Chapter 2 Laudatio for Agnes Heller
Chapter 3 Marxism and Exile: Reflections on Intellectual Migration
Chapter 4 Why Does Agnes Heller Matter? Political Action, Social Change, and Radical Politics in the Twenty-First Century
Chapter 5 The Power of Political Needs
Chapter 6 Remembrance of Things Future: From Totalitarianism to Fundamentalism
Chapter 7 Existential Choice: Heller's Either/Or
Chapter 8 Narrative Philosophy: An Essay on Agnes Heller
Chapter 9 To Agnes Heller: An Open Letter on Philosophy and the Real Problem of Woman
Chapter 10 Loving Fate
Chapter 11 Agnes Heller as Autobiographer: History and a Myriad of Contexts
Chapter 12 The Comedy of Philosophy
Chapter 13 Nietzsche's Thumotic Politics: A Programmatic Statement with an Eye on Agnes Heller
Chapter 14 From Contingency to Destiny: On Heller's Existential Ethics
Chapter 15 Reflections on the Essays Addressed to My Work
Chapter 16 "Von der Amut am Geiste": A Dialogue by the Young Lukacs
Chapter 17 Further Reading