Introducing Walter Benjamin: A Graphic Guide PDF
Preview Introducing Walter Benjamin: A Graphic Guide
Published by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP Email: [email protected] www.introducingbooks.com ISBN: 978-178578-019-6 Text copyright © 2012 Icon Books Ltd Illustrations copyright © 2012 Icon Books Ltd The author and illustrator has asserted their moral rights Originating editor: Richard Appignanesi No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Contents Cover Title Page Copyright The Passionate Critic Snapshots of A Berlin Childhood The Peripatetic Philosophy Student Kant and Neo-Kantianism Apriorism Phenomenology Pro-Or Anti-zionism? “What were you doing on 4 August 1914?” Betrayal and Revolution How to Avoid Conscription Friendship with Gershom Scholem Greek Tragedy Trauerspiel or Mourning Play On Language The Experience of Freedom The Experience of Colour German Romantic Art Criticism The Concept of Ruination Parental Strife The Failed Editor Conflict with the George Circle The Story of Elective Affinities Benjamin’s Affinities The Task of the Critic The Task of the Translator The Bookman ... And the Media Man Riegl Versus Wölfflin The Transition from Haptic to Optic The Aesthetics of Disintegration Riegl’s Structuralism The Task of the Art Critic Children’s Books Line or Colour? The Optic of Technology The Collector Benjamin the Nomad Introduction to Marxism Mediation Reification The Bolshevik Verdict The Porosity of Naples Spatial and Temporal Porosity A Dictator’s Visit Introducing the Arcade Looking Ahead … Past, Present and Future Moscow Diary Sovereign Violence The Religion of Capitalism The Origin of German Tragic Drama What is “Baroque”? Political Theologies A Nihilistic Toy-box Symbol, Allegory and Ruination A University Scandal A Fairytale for Academics One-way Street Scenes from One-way Street: Writing ... And Technology Benjamin, the Surrealist Teddy and Bert The Frankfurt Institute Dissimilar Similarities “The Hard Thing Gives Way” “The Presence of the past, Now” The Art of Montage The Dark Age Begins The Great Dictator … … Seen as Charlie Chaplin The Author as Producer The Age of Reproduction The Painter and the Camera-man Mass Reproduction History of the Aura The Decay of the Aura Uncertainties and Ambiguities Criticisms of Benjamin’s Position Kafka and Benjamin’s Mysticism The Kabbala Which Benjamin? Origins of the Arcades Project A Central Architectural Motif A Marathon Project Materialist Ventriloquism The Maverick Historian Phantasmagoria and Dialectical Images Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century 1. Fourier, or the Arcades 2. Daguerre, or the Panoramas 3. Grandville, or the World Exhibitions 4. Louis Philippe, or the Interior 5. Baudelaire, or the Streets of Paris 6. Haussmann, or the Barricades Troubles with the Institute The Exile in Danger Last Exit … Theology and History Samples From the “Theses” Time Runs Out … In Transit The Last Day Further Reading Biographies of Walter Benjamin Acknowledgements The Authors THE PASSIONATE CRITIC Walter Benjamin eludes classification. He seemed content with the name “critic”. But an exceptional critic of such passion, erudition and virtuosity who transforms the nature of what usually passes for criticism. His gaze is multiple: philosophy, language, art, architecture, photography, history, Jewish mysticism, Marxism. He does not merely glance at these but digs to their foundations. If this book can help the reader through the dazzling maze of Benjamin’s work, it will be at the end to find Benjamin the allegorist. SNAPSHOTS OF A BERLIN CHILDHOOD Walter Benjamin was born 15 July 1892 in Berlin. His parents were Emil, a businessman, and his wife Pauline, née Schönflies. They were Jewish, unassimilated to Christianity, but like many others not strictly observant. He remembered his childhood experiences in a series of memoirs written when he was contemplating suicide in 1932, “Berlin Chronicle” and “A Berlin Childhood Around 1900”. The hybrid nature of these texts – at once cultural Childhood Around 1900”. The hybrid nature of these texts – at once cultural criticism and personal reflection – exemplifies the complexity of Benjamin’s writings which transgress disciplinary borders and rules of genre. Benjamin presents his memories in the form of snapshot mosaic images, a practice which anticipates his later comments on the philosophy of history. He remembered himself walking reluctantly half a step behind his mother while out shopping.
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