Textual conspiracies : Walter Benjamin, idolatry, and political theory

318 Pages·2011·1.109 MB·English

by  Benjamin, Walter, Benjamin, Walter, Martel, James R

Textual Conspiracies

Textual Conspiracies
Walter Benjamin, Idolatry, and
Political Theory
James R. Martel
the university of michigan press
Ann Arbor
Copyright © by the University ofMichigan 2011
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A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Martel,James R.
Textual conspiracies :Walter Benjamin,idolatry,and political
theory / James R.Martel.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn978-0-472-11772-7 (cloth :alk.paper)
isbn978-0-472-02819-1 (e-book)
1.Benjamin,Walter,1892–1940—Political and social views.
2.Capitalism. 3.Liberalism. 4.Conspiracies. 5.Politics and
literature. I.Title.
pt2603.e455z73315 2011
838'.91209—dc22 2011007220
Acknowledgments
I want to express thanks to many people who helped me to write this
book.Two people in particular merit great thanks for this book’s publica-
tion.Joyce Seltzer has been an invaluable friend,advisor,and mentor in
facing the publishing world and conceptualizing my projects, this one
very much included.Melody Herr has been a phenomenal editor;her ad-
vice, enthusiasm, and advocacy have made getting this book to press a
truly enjoyable experience.Susan Cronin,Kevin Rennells,and Mike Ke-
hoe have also been very helpful at University of Michigan Press. I also
want to thank my university,San Francisco State University,and especially
my dean,Joel Kassiola,for giving me a sabbatical to help ‹nish this proj-
ect and for his support in general.Jodi Dean was instrumental in starting
this project; she got me thinking about conspiracy in the ‹rst place and
has been an astute and generous reader.Karen Feldman has also been a
great reader and was present at the ‹rst incarnations ofmy work on Kafka.
In October 2010,I was fortunate to be able to present the principal ar-
guments for this text at a conference entitled “Dangerous Crossings:Poli-
tics at the Limits ofthe Human,”held at Johns Hopkins University.Thank
you to the conference organizers: Drew Walker, Nathan Gies, Katherine
Goktepe,and Tim Hana‹n.Thanks also to Jennifer Culbert,Jane Bennett,
Willam Connolly, and Bonnie Honig for their excellent comments and
contributions to my project as well as their friendship.Other readers,col-
leagues, allies, and friends include, as always, Nasser Hussain and Mark
Andrejevic, and many other people whose support and wisdom are in-
valuable to me: Marianne Constable, Ruth Sonderegger, Jackie Stevens,
Martha Umphrey, Paul Passavant, Angelika von Wahl, Melissa Ptacek,
Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, Sara Kendall, Wendy Lochner, Jeanne
Scheper,Zhivka Valiavicharska,Jimmy Casas Klausen,Alex Dubilet,Ra-
mona Naddaff, Lisa Disch, Stephanie Sommerfeld, Adam Thurschwell,
Kennan Ferguson, David Bates, Shalini Satkunanandan, Stuart Murray,
vi | Acknowledgments
Anatole Anton,Sandra Luft,Anatoli Ignatov,Miguel Vatter,Libby Anker,
Alex Hirsch, Vicky Kahn, Keally McBride, Dean Mathiowetz, Brian
Weiner, Ron Sundstrom, Kate Gordy, Wendy Brown, Kyong-Min Son,
William Sokoloff, Vanessa Lemm, Tom Dumm, Peter Fitzpatrick, Colin
Perrin,Austin Sarat,Linda Ross Meyer,and many others.I want to thank
my many students in my two (to date) Walter Benjamin graduate semi-
nars at SFSU including Loren Lewis, Evan Stern, Rion Roberts, Steven
Swarbrick,Sharise Edwards,Tyler Nelson,Dieyana Ruzgani,Loren Stew-
art,Katrina Lappin,Veronica Roberts,Kenny Loui,Joshua Hurni,Cecily
Gonzalez, Rebecca Stillman, Randall Cohn, Brooks Kirchgassner, and
quite a few others.Finally I want to thank my wonderful family:my hus-
band,Carlos,my children,Jacques and Rocio,and Nina,Kathryn,Elic and
Mark,Ralph,Huguette,Django,and Shalini.
I give thanks to my mother,Huguette Martel,for her painting that is
used on the book cover.Thanks also go to Alice Martin at Service IMEC
Images (which holds the Gisèle Freund archives) and to Julie Galant at
Fotofolio (the company that made the postcard that the image came
from).I also thank Rich Stim,who did the research figuring out how to
obtain permission, and Javier Machado Leyva, who photographed the
painting and prepared the electronic file for use here.
An earlier version of chapter 2 ‹rst appeared as “The Messiah Who
Comes and Who Goes: Kafka’s Messianic Conspiracy in The Castle,” in
Theory and Event 12,no.3 (2009).Copyright © 2009 James Martel and The
Johns Hopkins University Press.Reprinted with permission by The Johns
Hopkins University Press. An earlier version of chapter 3 appeared as
“Machiavelli’s Public Conspiracies,”in MediaTropes 2,no.1 (2009):60–83.
Contents
Preface | No Hope ix
Introduction | Textual Conspiracies 1
Part I
1 | Walter Benjamin’s Conspiracy with Language 25
2 | Kafka:The Messiah Who Does Nothing at All 62
3 | Machiavelli’s Conspiracy ofOpen Secrets 88
Part II
4 | Rendering the World into Signs:Alexis de Tocqueville
and Edgar Allan Poe 115
5 | Hannah Arendt,Federico García Lorca,and the
Place for the Human 153
6 | Reconstructing the World:Frantz Fanon and Assia Djebar 190
Conclusion | A Faithless Leap:The Conspiracy
That Is Already Here 226
Notes 259
Bibliography 287
Index 295

Preface | No Hope
What does it mean to be a leftist in our time? There are those who still call
for and believe in revolution—those, that is, who conform to an earlier
version of the Left—but more widely,it seems safe to say,few think such
an event will occur in our lifetime.In this moment in time,it seems that
for most people such a revolution is impossible, nearly unthinkable.
When we speak of revolution today in much of the world, we generally
mean the creation or restoration ofliberal democracy,not the overthrow
of capitalism. The overthrow of Hosni Mubarak and other events cur-
rently sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa may deservedly
be called revolutions.They have been thrilling and promise a justice that
is long overdue.But there is little or no expectation that the dictators be-
ing challenged are going to be replaced by any kind of radically demo-
cratic,anticapitalist political arrangements.These revolutions are not of
that kind. While there have been moments in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya
where truly spontaneous,decentralized resistance movements came into
being, overall such movements have been absorbed into “normalizing”
discourses ofsovereignty and market order.Without the immanent possi-
bility of radical revolution—the central theme that animated the Left for
much ofits early history—direct and explicit opposition to capitalism be-
comes murkier and more diffuse. The Left, such as it is, exists today in
pieces and tatters.There is an important subculture ofresistance in terms
ofopposition,for example,to the World Trade Organization.Examples of
guerrilla theater,large and disruptive demonstrations,and other forms of
protest have gained widespread media attention. There are a handful of
countries,such as Cuba and (to a lesser degree) Bolivia,where opposition
to capitalism remains entrenched,at least ideologically.There are also (as
this book will argue further) an in‹nite number of microresistances and
oppositions to capitalism that appear in the most ordinary and unex-
pected places.Yet,for all of this,capitalism goes largely unchallenged; it