Walter Benjamin was a German Marxist literary critic and philosopher who enriched Western thought with an innovative synthesis of historical materialism, German idealism, and Jewish mysticism. His work is notable for its unique approach to social and cultural criticism and aesthetic theory. Benjamin explored a lost appreciation for myth through the concept of "auratic perception." His essays and literary translations continue to exert a lasting influence on academic and literary studies.
Focusing on his experiences as a book collector, the author explores the intricate connections that develop between individuals and their possessions. Through personal reflections, he delves into the emotional and psychological ties that bind collectors to their books, revealing the unique stories and relationships that emerge from these interactions.
Marking the centenary of Walter Benjamin's immensely influential essay, "Toward the Critique of Violence," this critical edition presents readers with an altogether new, fully annotated translation of a work that is widely recognized as a classic of modern political theory. The volume includes twenty-one notes and fragments by Benjamin along with passages from all of the contemporaneous texts to which his essay refers. Readers thus encounter for the first time in English provocative arguments about law and violence advanced by Hermann Cohen, Kurt Hiller, Erich Unger, and Emil Lederer. A new translation of selections from Georges Sorel's Reflections on Violence further illuminates Benjamin's critical program. The volume also includes, for the first time in any language, a bibliography Benjamin drafted for the expansion of the essay and the development of a corresponding philosophy of law. An extensive introduction and afterword provide additional context. With its challenging argument concerning violence, law, and justice--which addresses such topical matters as police violence, the death penalty, and the ambiguous force of religion--Benjamin's work is as important today as it was upon its publication in Weimar Germany a century ago.
A new translation of philosopher Walter Benjamin's work as it pertains to his famous essay, "The Storyteller," this collection includes short stories, book reviews, parables, and as a selection of writings by other authors who had an influence on Benjamin's work. “The Storyteller” is one of Walter Benjamin’s most important essays, a beautiful and suggestive meditation on the relation between narrative form, social life, and individual existence—and the product of at least a decade’s work. What might be called the story of The Storyteller Essays starts in 1926, with a piece Benjamin wrote about the German romantic Johann Peter Hebel. It continues in a series of short essays, book reviews, short stories, parables, and even radio shows for children. This collection brings them all together to give readers a new appreciation of how Benjamin’s thinking changed and ripened over time, while including several key readings of his own—texts by his contemporaries Ernst Bloch and Georg Lukács; by Paul Valéry; and by Herodotus and Montaigne. Finally, to bring things around, there are three short stories by “the incomparable Hebel” with whom the whole intellectual adventure began.
"A companion volume to Illuminations, the first collection of Walter Benjamin's writings, Reflections presents a further sampling of his wide-ranging work"--
The book presents a collection of significant writings and experiments related to hashish and mescaline, highlighting the first and second impressions of hashish, along with a detailed protocol of a hashish experiment conducted on May 11, 1928. It also includes a 1930 work titled "Hashish" and additional notes, culminating in Fritz Fränkel's account of a mescaline experiment from May 22, 1934, featuring three illustrations. This compilation offers insights into early psychoactive substance research and its cultural implications.
A collection of twenty-seven letters spanning from 1783 to 1883, this book offers a glimpse into the Enlightenment and humanistic values of German society during a turbulent historical period. Compiled and commented on by Walter Benjamin, it was originally published in 1936 under a pseudonym to counter the oppressive narrative of Nazi Germany. The letters, previously featured in the Frankfurter Zeitung, serve as a testament to a more enlightened bourgeoisie, aiming to present an alternative to the prevailing ideologies of the time.
Marcel Proust's monumental work, "In Search of Lost Time," consists of seven volumes, with "In the Shadow of Young Girls" and "The Duchess of Guermantes" as the first two parts. The narrative explores the life of a young man in fin-de-siècle France, focusing on memory and societal dynamics within the aristocracy.
A beautiful collection of the legendary thinker’s short stories The Storyteller gathers for the first time the fiction of the legendary critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin, best known for his groundbreaking studies of culture and literature, including Illuminations, One-Way Street and The Arcades Project. His stories revel in the erotic tensions of city life, cross the threshold between rational and hallucinatory realms, celebrate the importance of games, and delve into the peculiar relationship between gambling and fortune-telling, and explore the themes that defined Benjamin. The novellas, fables, histories, aphorisms, parables and riddles in this collection are brought to life by the playful imagery of the modernist artist and Bauhaus figure Paul Klee.
An absorbing and beautifully presented selection of Walter Benjamin's never before seen personal manuscripts, images, and documents from his own collection
Benjamin's writings on photography includes a new translation of this influential essay as well as a range of other writings, both published and unpublished, some are translated into English for first time here. As a notable philosopher, critic and uniquely imaginative thinker, Benjamin's essays offer a fascinating critique of early photography.