The Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin

This Companion offers a comprehensive introduction to the thought of the highly influential twentieth-century critic and theorist Walter Benjamin.

David S. Ferris (Edited by)

9780521793292, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 March 2004

266 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.53 kg

'The essays explore the strain between romanticism and modernism in Benjamin's thought and manage to respond masterfully to the challenge of reading his sober prose, which ranges from laconic aphorisms to vibrant and exertive discourse … yet another engaging essay focusing on Benjamin's relation to romanticism … This essay's merit lies in demonstrating Benjamin's unequivocal and enthusiastic espousal of avant-garde aesthetics starting from One-Way Street to Arcades Project … Jennings' essay is impelling and thought-provoking …' Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory

This Companion offers a comprehensive introduction to the work and thought of the highly influential twentieth-century critic and theorist Walter Benjamin. The volume provides examinations of the different aspects of Benjamin's work that have had a significant effect on contemporary critical and historical thought. Topics discussed by experts in the field include Benjamin's relation to the avant-garde movements of his time, the form of the work of art, his theories on language and mimesis, modernity, his relation to Brecht and the Frankfurt School, his significance and relevance to modern cultural studies, his formative interpretation of Romanticism, and his autobiographical writings. The volume is aimed at readers who may be coming to Benjamin for the first time or who have some knowledge of Benjamin but would like to know more about the issues and concepts central to his work. Additional material includes a guide to further reading and a chronology.

List of contributors
List of abbreviations and short titles
Chronology
Introduction: reading Benjamin David S. Ferris
1. Walter Benjamin and the European avant-garde Michael Jennings
2. Art forms Jan Mieszkowski
3. Language and mimesis in Walter Benjamin's work Beatrice Hanssen
4. Walter Benjamin's concept of cultural history Howard Caygill
5. Benjamin's modernity Andrew Benjamin
6. Benjamin and psychoanalysis Sarah Ley Roff
7. Benjamin and the ambiguities of Romanticism Rebecca Comay
8. Body politics: Benjamin's dialectical materialism between Brecht and the Frankfurt School Rainer Nägele
9. Method and time: Benjamin's dialectical images Max Pensky
10. Benjamin's phantasmagoria: the Arcades Project Margaret Cohen
11. Acts of self-portraiture: Benjamin's confessional and literary writings Gerhard Richter
Guide to further reading
Index.

Subject Areas: History of Western philosophy [HPC], Literary theory [DSA]