With The Sharpened Axe Of Reason
Walter Benjamin holds a unique fascination for students and scholars interested in the question of modernity. The most original thinker of Weimar Germany, Benjamin has become something of a cultural icon and his works are often regarded with awe rather than critical scrutiny. This book offers surprising new insights from a number of perspectives -- sociology, history, women's studies, literary and cultural studies -- and investigates unexplored areas of Benjamin scholarship to arrive at a...
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Walter Benjamin holds a unique fascination for students and scholars interested in the question of modernity. The most original thinker of Weimar Germany, Benjamin has become something of a cultural icon and his works are often regarded with awe rather than critical scrutiny. This book offers surprising new insights from a number of perspectives -- sociology, history, women’s studies, literary and cultural studies -- and investigates unexplored areas of Benjamin scholarship to arrive at a critically balanced perception of his work. There are four main sections:· a critical re-evaluation of Benjamin’s concepts of history and modernity in light of postmodernist discourses;· a discussion of aspects of Benjamin’s literary scholarship; · a re-evaluation of Benjamin’s writings on media and performance theories; and · an investigation of Benjamin’s peculiar ‘utopianism’ which includes a critical consideration of sexual/gender politics.
Introduction: Benjamin the Centenarian11Walter Benjamin's Prehistory of Modernity as Anticipation of Postmodernity? Some Methodological Reflections152Walter Benjamin's Imaginary Landscape333On Aura and an Ecological Aesthetics of Nature554A 'Hermaphroditic Position': Benjamin, Postmodernism and the Frenzy of Gender675Reading/Writing the Feminine City: Calvino, Hessel, Benjamin856Sirens of Gaslight and Odalisques of the Oil Lamp: The Language of Desire in the Arcades Project997Benjamin, Fourier, Barthes1138The Messiah Complex: The Angel of History Looks Back at Walter Benjamin from its Perch on the Ruins of 'Socialism as it Existed in Reality'1299Walter Benjamin as Literary Critic13910The Essential Vulgarity of Benjamin's Essay on Goethe's Elective Affinities14911A Man of Letters: Walter Benjamin as Correspondent, Editor of Letters and Theorist of Epistolography16112Walter Benjamin and Children's Literature16913An Interrupted Performance: On Walter Benjamin's Idea of Children's Theatre17914Benjamin's Utopia of Education as Theatrum Mundi et Vitae: On the Programme of a Proletarian Children's Theatre20115Beyond Benjamin: Performative Artwork and its Resistance to Reproduction219Notes on Contributors225Index227
