A Companion to the Works of Walter Benjamin (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture, 44)

An advanced introduction to Benjamin's work and its actualization for our own times.Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) has emerged as one of the leading cultural critics of the twentieth century. His work encompasses aesthetics, metaphysical language and narrative theories, German literary history, philosophies of history, the intersection of Marxism and Messianic thought, urban topography, and the development of photography and film. Benjamin defined the task of the critic as one that blasts endangered moments of the past out of the continuum of history so that they attain new significance. This volume of new essays employs this principle of actualization as its methodological program in offering a new advanced introduction to Benjamin's own work. The essays analyze Benjamin's central texts, themes, terminologies, and genres in their original contexts while simultaneously situating them in new parameters, such as contemporary media, memory culture, constructions of gender, postcoloniality, and theories of urban topographies. The Companion brings together an international group of established and emerging scholars to explicate Benjamin's actuality from a multidisciplinary perspective. Designed for audiences interested in literary criticism, cultural studies, and neighboring disciplines, the volume serves as a stimulus for new debates about Benjamin's intellectual legacy today. Contributors: Wolfgang Bock, Willi Bolle, Dianne Chisholm, Adrian Daub, Dominik Finkelde, Eric Jarosinski, Lutz Koepnick, Vivian Liska, Karl Ivan Solibakke, Marc de Wilde, Bernd Witte Rolf J. Goebel is Distinguished Professor of German and Chair of the Department of WorldLanguages and Cultures at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. An advanced introduction to Benjamin's work and its actualization for our own times. Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) has emerged as one of the leading cultural critics of the twentieth century. His work encompasses aesthetics, metaphysical language and narrative theories, German literary history, philosophies of history, the intersection of Marxism and Messianic thought, urban topography, and the development of photography and film. Benjamin defined the task of the critic as one that blasts endangered moments of the past out of the continuum of history so that they attain new significance. This volume of new essays employs this principle of actualization as its methodological program in offering a new advanced introduction to Benjamin's own work. The essays analyze Benjamin's central texts, themes, terminologies, and genres in their original contexts while simultaneously situating them in new parameters, such as contemporary media, memory culture, constructions of gender, postcoloniality, and theories of urban topographies. The Companion brings together an international group of established and emerging scholars to explicate Benjamin's actuality from a multidisciplinary perspective. Designed for audiences interested in literary criticism, cultural studies, and neighboring disciplines, the volume serves as a stimulus for new debates about Benjamin's intellectual legacy today. Contributors: Wolfgang Bock, Willi Bolle, Dianne Chisholm, Adrian Daub, Dominik Finkelde, Eric Jarosinski, Lutz Koepnick, Vivian Liska, Karl Ivan Solibakke, Marc de Wilde, Bernd Witte Rolf J. Goebel is Distinguished Professor of German and Chair of the Department of WorldLanguages and Cultures at the University of Alabama in Huntsville

Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) has emerged as one of the leading cultural critics of the twentieth century. His work encompasses aesthetics, metaphysical language and narrative theories, German literary history, philosophies of history, the intersection of Marxism and Messianic thought, urban topography, and the development of photography and film. Benjamin defined the task of the critic as one that blasts endangered moments of the past out of the continuum of history so that they attain new significance. This volume of new essays employs this principle of actualization as its methodological program in offering a new advanced introduction to Benjamin's own work. The essays analyze Benjamin's central texts, themes, terminologies, and genres in their original contexts while simultaneously situating them in new parameters, such as contemporary media, memory culture, constructions of gender, postcoloniality, and theories of urban topographies. The Companion brings together an international group of established and emerging scholars to explicate Benjamin's actuality from a multidisciplinary perspective. Designed for audiences interested in literary criticism, cultural studies, and neighboring disciplines, the volume serves as a stimulus for new debates about Benjamin's intellectual legacy today. Contributors: Dominik Finkelde, Wolfgang Bock, Bernd Witte, Lutz Koepnick, Eric Jarosinski, Karl Ivan Solibakke, Marc de Wilde, Vivian Liska, Willi Bolle, Dianne Chisholm, Adrian Daub. Rolf J. Goebel is Professor of German at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Benjamin's Criticism of Language and Literature - Wolfgang BockThe Presence of the Baroque: Benjamin's Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels in Contemporary Contexts - Dominik FinkeldeLost Orders of the Day: Benjamin's Einbahnstrasse - Wolfgang BockLiterature as the Medium of Collective Memory: Reading Benjamin's Einbahnstrasse, "Der Erzahler," and "Das Paris des Second Empire bei Baudelaire" - Bernd WitteBenjamin in the Age of New Media - Lutz KoepnickOne Little Rule: On Benjamin, Autobiography, and Never Using the Word "I" - Eric JarosinskiThe Passagen-Werk Revisited: The Dialectics of Fragmentation and Reconfiguration in Urban Modernity - Karl Ivan SolibakkeBenjamin's Politics of Remembrance: A Reading of the Theses Contained in "UEber den Begriff der Geschichte" - Marc de WildeThe Legacy of Benjamin's Messianism: Giorgio Agamben and other Contenders - Vivian LiskaParis on the Amazon?: Postcolonial Interrogations of Benjamin's European Modernism - Willi BolleBenjamin's Gender, Sex, and Eros - Dianne ChisholmSonic Dreamworlds: Benjamin, Adorno, and the Phantasmagoria of the Opera House - Adrian Daub