Style and Time: Essays on the Politics of Appearance (Avant-Garde & Modernism Studies)

199 Pages·2006·0.73 MB·English

by  Andrew Benjamin

Style and Time
A G M S T U D I E S
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Style and Time
Essays on the Politics
of Appearance
A N D R E W B E N J A M I N
Northwestern
University Press
Evanston
Illinois
Northwestern University Press
www.nupress.northwestern.edu
Copyright © 2006 by Northwestern University Press.
Published 2006. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
isbn0-8101-2333-9 (cloth)
isbn0-8101-2334-7 (paper)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Benjamin, Andrew E.
Style and time : essays on the politics of appearance /
Andrew Benjamin.
p. cm. — (Avant-garde & modernism studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn0-8101-2333-9 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn0-8101-2334-7
(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Benjamin, Walter, 1892–1940—Aesthetics. 2. Style
(Philosophy) 3. Time. 4. Interruption (Psychology)
I. Title. II. Series: Avant-garde and modernism studies.
b3209.b584b445 2006
111.85—dc22
2005023274
(cid:2)(cid:2) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of the American National Standard for Information
Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ansi z39.48-1992.
Contents
Acknowledgments, vii
Introduction, ix
Part One. Working through Walter Benjamin
1 Benjamin’s Modernity, 5
2 The Time of Fashion: A Commentary on Thesis XIV in Walter
Benjamin’s “On the Concept of History,” 25
3 Benjamin’s Style: The Style That Is Not Jugendstil, 39
Part Two. Unforeseen Appearances
4 The “Place” of Cosmopolitan Architecture, 63
5 In What Style Should We Build? The Style of Cosmopolitan
Architecture, 80
6 Refugees, Cosmopolitanism, and the Place of Citizenship, 107
7 The Matter of a Materialist Philosophy of Art: Bataille’s Manet, 124
Notes, 139
Index, 165

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the publishers for permission to reprint the follow-
ing parts of this book, earlier versions of which were previously published:
chapter 1, fromThe Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin, edited by
David Ferris (Cambridge University Press, 2004); chapter 2, from the jour-
nalThesis 11 (no. 75, 2003); and chapters 4 and 6, fromArchitectural The-
ory Review 7 (nos. 1 and 2, respectively, 2002).
This book has been made possible with the assistance of an Australian
Research Council Grant. It forms part of the project “Between the Out-
back and the Sea: The Place of Cosmopolitanism in Contemporary Aus-
tralia,” undertaken at the University of Tasmania.
Finally, I would like to thank Dimitris Vardoulakis for his help with the
preparation of the manuscript.
vii

Introduction
Writing on style, while attempting at the same time to distinguish between
style and tradition, as well as style and fashion, may seem an undertaking
whose relevance needs to be questioned. However, the contention to be ad-
vanced throughout these essays is that the question of style has never been
more relevant. The basis of this claim is found in the intricate set of inter-
connections that define style; i.e., the complex of relations between ap-
pearance, recognition, and identification. The significance of each of these
terms is that they indicate that issues having to do with style and presence
cannot be thought outside their specific relation to forms of social identity
arising from structures of recognition. Style, even at its most straightfor-
ward, involves a relationship between appearance and recognition. (Style
has to be recognized as such.) The interconnections between these terms
establish what will be called thesite of style. Working through this site will
open up what had been thought to have been closed down. Style will ac-
quire a relevance that its conflation with either predetermined appearances
on the one hand or fashion on the other would have rendered obscure. To
deploy a formulation from the writings of Walter Benjamin, a passage that
will continue to be of great significance throughout the discussion to come,
what this will involve is an awakening of style. InThe Arcades Project Ben-
jamin writes that
we construct an awakening theoretically—that is, we imitate, in the
realm of language, the trick that is decisive physiologically in awaken-
ing, for awakening operates with cunning [Erwachen operiert mit der
List]. Only with cunning, not without it, can we work free of the realm
of dream. (AP 907/GS 5.2:1213)1
The language of dream and awakening is not a simple opposition. The de-
cisive term that interrupts such a possibility is “cunning”(List). Cunning
not only evokes freedom from the domain of dreams, it also enables the
dream’sactualnaturetoberecognized.Whiletheterm“cunning”hasahis-
tory of great significance, it can be understood as introducing the realm of
directed activity.2Awakening necessitates action, even if the form taken by
that action awaits specification. The action in question involves a process,
which in freeing itself from the hold of description opens other possibili-
ties. While these other possibilities will have to be named, the important
point to note at the beginning is that awakening involves, for Benjamin, a
ix