
Bridging Benjamin Volume 68
A Philosophy of Technology, Place, and Education
Dominic Smith(Author)
University of Minnesota Press
Will be published approx. on 23. March 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
280 pages
978-1-5179-1965-8 (ISBN)
Description
Walter Benjamin reimagined through the forgotten power of radio
Philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) has long been recognized for his influence on the fields of literature, film, media studies, critical legal theory, and philosophy. Bringing fresh attention to an often-overlooked aspect of his oeuvre, Bridging Benjamin examines the dozens of radio broadcasts he produced, primarily for children, between 1927 and 1933. Delivered after the academic rejection of his notoriously complex Trauerspiel, these shows became a testing ground for Benjamin's developing ideas and experimental pedagogy. Though they were cast off as inconsequential by both Benjamin and his contemporaries, Dominic Smith reveals the broadcasts to be a fruitful site for a novel, "derailed" interpretation of Benjamin's larger body of work.
Reading Benjamin's radio production as a dynamic site of philosophical experimentation, Smith uses it as a channel and amplifier for three integral but underappreciated aspects of Benjamin's work: his philosophies of technology, place, and education. Showing how he used broadcast media to explore the increasing "virtualization" of place in networked society, Bridging Benjamin encourages an embrace of Benjamin in contrast to his divisive historical counterparts in the philosophy of technology, such as Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt.
Interpreting Benjamin's broadcasts as a form of peripatetic thinking - deeply embedded in place, yet mobile and mediated - Bridging Benjamin offers a compelling model for reassessing attachments to the technologies and practices shaping our contemporary worlds.
Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly.
Philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) has long been recognized for his influence on the fields of literature, film, media studies, critical legal theory, and philosophy. Bringing fresh attention to an often-overlooked aspect of his oeuvre, Bridging Benjamin examines the dozens of radio broadcasts he produced, primarily for children, between 1927 and 1933. Delivered after the academic rejection of his notoriously complex Trauerspiel, these shows became a testing ground for Benjamin's developing ideas and experimental pedagogy. Though they were cast off as inconsequential by both Benjamin and his contemporaries, Dominic Smith reveals the broadcasts to be a fruitful site for a novel, "derailed" interpretation of Benjamin's larger body of work.
Reading Benjamin's radio production as a dynamic site of philosophical experimentation, Smith uses it as a channel and amplifier for three integral but underappreciated aspects of Benjamin's work: his philosophies of technology, place, and education. Showing how he used broadcast media to explore the increasing "virtualization" of place in networked society, Bridging Benjamin encourages an embrace of Benjamin in contrast to his divisive historical counterparts in the philosophy of technology, such as Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt.
Interpreting Benjamin's broadcasts as a form of peripatetic thinking - deeply embedded in place, yet mobile and mediated - Bridging Benjamin offers a compelling model for reassessing attachments to the technologies and practices shaping our contemporary worlds.
Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Minnesota
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
340 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5179-1965-8 (9781517919658)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Dominic Smith is senior lecturer of philosophy at the University of Dundee, Scotland. He is author of Exceptional Technologies: A Continental Philosophy of Technology and coeditor of Contingency and Plasticity in Everyday Technologies.