Walter Benjamin
An Aesthetic of Redemption
1st Edition
Published on 11. March 1994
Book
Paperback/Softback
316 pages
978-0-520-08400-1 (ISBN)
Description
Few twentieth-century thinkers have proven as influential as Walter Benjamin, the German-Jewish philosopher and cultural and literary critic. Richard Wolin's book remains among the clearest and most insightful introductions to Benjamin's writings, offering a philosophically rich exposition of his complex relationship to Adorno, Brecht, Jewish Messianism, and Western Marxism. Wolin provides nuanced interpretations of Benjamin's widely studied writings on Baudelaire, historiography, and art in the age of mechanical reproduction. In a new Introduction written especially for this edition, Wolin discusses the unfinished Arcades Project, as well as recent tendencies in the reception of Benjamin's work and the relevance of his ideas to contemporary debates about modernity and postmodernity.
Reviews / Votes
"The newcomer to Benjamin's work is here in excellent hands." * Times Literary Supplement * "A highly successful intellectual biography of Walter Benjamin . . . making an original argument concerning the works and addressing directly the issues raised by Benjamin that are still very much alive in our own time." * Theory and Society *More details
Series
Edition
First Edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Berkerley
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
1 frontisp.
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
499 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-520-08400-1 (9780520084001)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2023
1st Edition
Naval Institute Press
€40.99
Available for download
Person
Richard Wolin is Professor of History at Rice University. His books include The Politics of Being: The Political Thought of Martin Heidegger (1990) and The Terms of Cultural Criticism: The Frankfurt School, Existentialism, Poststructuralism (1992).
Content
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A NOTE ON THE TRANSLATIONS
A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY
INTRODUCTION TO THE REVISED EDITION
Chapter One
ORIGINS
Childhood and Autobiography
Youth Movement
Romantic Anticapitalism
Chapter Two
THE PATH TO TRAUERSPIEL
Experience, Kabbalah, and Language
Messianic Time Versus Historical Time
Allegory
Chapter Three
IDEAS AND THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
Anti-Historicism
The Essay as Mediation Between Art and
Philosophical Truth
Constellation, Origin, Monad
Chapter Four
FROM MESSIANISM TO MATERIALISM
Radical Communism
One-Way Street and Dialectical Images
Surrealism
Chapter Five
BENJAMIN AND BRECHT
"Crude Thinking"
Epic Theater
The Author as Producer
Chapter Six
THE ADORNO-BENJAMIN DISPUTE
The Philosophical Rapprochement Between Benjamin
and Adorno in the Early 1930s
The Arcades Expose
Art and Mechanical Reproduction
Methodological Asceticism, Magic and Positivism
Beyond the Dispute
Chapter Seven
BENJAMIN'S MATERIALIST THEORY OF
EXPERIENCE
The Disintegration of Community: Novel versus Story
Baudelaire, Modernity, and Shock Experience
Nonsensuous Correspondences
Chapter Eight
"A L'ECART DE TOUS LES COURANTS"
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A NOTE ON THE TRANSLATIONS
A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY
INTRODUCTION TO THE REVISED EDITION
Chapter One
ORIGINS
Childhood and Autobiography
Youth Movement
Romantic Anticapitalism
Chapter Two
THE PATH TO TRAUERSPIEL
Experience, Kabbalah, and Language
Messianic Time Versus Historical Time
Allegory
Chapter Three
IDEAS AND THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
Anti-Historicism
The Essay as Mediation Between Art and
Philosophical Truth
Constellation, Origin, Monad
Chapter Four
FROM MESSIANISM TO MATERIALISM
Radical Communism
One-Way Street and Dialectical Images
Surrealism
Chapter Five
BENJAMIN AND BRECHT
"Crude Thinking"
Epic Theater
The Author as Producer
Chapter Six
THE ADORNO-BENJAMIN DISPUTE
The Philosophical Rapprochement Between Benjamin
and Adorno in the Early 1930s
The Arcades Expose
Art and Mechanical Reproduction
Methodological Asceticism, Magic and Positivism
Beyond the Dispute
Chapter Seven
BENJAMIN'S MATERIALIST THEORY OF
EXPERIENCE
The Disintegration of Community: Novel versus Story
Baudelaire, Modernity, and Shock Experience
Nonsensuous Correspondences
Chapter Eight
"A L'ECART DE TOUS LES COURANTS"
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX