Book Description
Walter Benjamin's most famous and influential essay remains The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.Walter Benjamin and the Work of Art is the first book to provide a broad and dedicated analysis of this canonical work and its effect upon core contemporary concerns in the visual arts, aesthetics and the history of philosophy.

The book is structured around three distinct areas: the extension of Benjamin's work; the question of historical connection; the importance of the essay in the development of criticism of both the visual arts and literature.Contributors to the volume include major Benjamin commentators, whose work has very much defined the reception of the essay, and leading philosophers, historians and aesthetician, whose approaches open up new areas of interest and relevance. ... Read more

Book Description
In this major reinterpretation, Howard Caygill argues that all of Benjamin's work is characterized by its focus on a concept of experience derived from Kant but applied by Benjamin to objects as diverse as urban experience, visual art, literature and philosophy. The book analyzes the development of Benjamin's concept of experience in his early writings showing that it emerges from an engagement with visual experience, and in particular the experience of colour.

By representing Benjamin as primarily a thinker of the visual field, Caygill is able to bring forward previously neglected texts on inscription and the visual field and to cast many of his more familiar texts, for instance the Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction in a new light. ... Read more

Book Description
In response to an overwhelming resurgence of interest in recent years in the work and life of Walter Benjamin, along with a marked increase in the availability of Benjamin's own work (both in the form new translations and new editions of already available texts), this is a timely reappearance of Walter Benjamin's Philosophy - Destruction and Experience - an influential and authoritative collection of commentary from the world's foremost Benjamin scholars. Originally part of the Warwick Studies in European Philosophy series from Routledge, this volume features contributions from Rodolphe Gasche, Howard Caygill, Gertrud Koch, Andrew Benjamin, A.G. Duttmann and others.

Contains a newly commissioned essay by Peter Osborne, which places the volume in context following the recent developments in Walter Benjamin studies and another by Esther Leslie examining the impact of the Arcades Project on Benjamin studies. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description
Walter Benjamin, Religion, and Aesthetics is an innovative attempt to reconceive the key concepts of religious studies through a reading with, and against, Walter Benjamin. Brent Plate deftly sifts through Benjamin's voluminous writings showing how his concepts of art, allegory, and experience undo traditional religious concepts such as myth, symbol, memory, narrative, creation, and redemption. Recasting religion as religious practice, as process and movement, Plate locates a Benjaminian materialist aesthetics, what the author calls an "allegorical aesthetics," in order to uncover sources and establish a new locus for the study of religion.

Placing the concept of an allegorical aesthetics into practice, Plate offers examinations of aesthetic productions such as Daniel Libeskind's architecture and Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades alongside religious developments such as the Hindu Bhakti movement and Jewish Kabbalistic thought.

Walter Benjamin, Religion, and Aesthetics will be necessary reading for those interested in religion and the arts, aesthetics, and material culture. ... Read more

Book Description
Walter Benjamin's magnum opus was a book he did not live to write. In The Dialectics of Seeing, Susan Buck-Morss offers an inventive reconstruction of the Passagen-Werk, or Arcades Project, as it might have taken form. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Philosophik Genius.
"The Dialectics of Seeing" is an absolutely *superb* book -- possibly the best book on philosophy I have ever read. Not yet having read the Harvard U Press edition of the Arcades Project, I don't really have anybasis for comparing the two works, but it seems to me that Buck-Morss'astonishing (incandescent) use of self-deconstructive and poetic literarytechniques in this tour de force of an "invention" of the ArcadesProject entitles it to rank as at least as dazzling and eye-opening (deepassumption-challenging) as anything else Benjamin himself wrote. Sourcesaren't important; spelling isn't important; pedantry is misleading as acriterion of value. All that matters is that the experience of reading thebook be a dialectical one -- and the experience of reading *this* book*is*. An absolutely incomparable work.

Wonderful
I have to agree with the reader from Los Angeles, and the review of November 28, 1999. This book is a lot of fun! Yes, a peculiar judgement, I know.

I'm not usually a reader of literary scholarship and excavation.(Hey, I'm in the Army and very busy and I don't have much time to read).But there is something about this book which is fascinating and veryintriguing.

Now that "The Arcades Project," Harvard BelknapPress: 1999, has just been published I have been trying to resist buyingthis rather expensive work. But I must say that because of this book I'm"reviewing" here by Susan Buck-Morss , I'm going to have tosuccumb and buy it soon.

Ok, this is not a fancy or insightfulexamination of the "why's" and "wherefore's" on mypart. But I encourage any and all readers to trust their guts onthis...what at first seem opaque and in-accessible, gradually unveilssomething crucial about Benjamin's project for ourselves and our cultural,our History.

I'm thinking now of what it would be like to find out thatwe have been missing something all along.I mean our Western Culture andits great wonders. Perhaps missing something crucial about ourselves.

Maybe this is one way to think of it, reader: and ask yourself thisquestion perhaps. What if what has been shown to us as our history orculture, something we both admire and love, but are at times horrified bycould be like a movie that holds us in its grip.

But imagine this moviehas been worked on over many years, and various editors and directors havechanged hands in the creation of the final, definitive print which will beshown to the rest of us.

Now, imagine that each director, based onhis/her own sense of things, decided what part of the original film hemight keep and which parts he'd destroy.

But some of the editors hated tolet all the spliced out frames be destroyed. And put some of them away in adrawer let's say.

Its kind of like Benjamin was searching the arcades,the hidden passage-ways between buildings and looking in the drawers forthe missing frames and was then trying to figure out where to splice theframes back into the original.

Now, would the reconstructed film ofourselves, our History and Culture make sense to us?If the originalsequence is still inexplicable to us,or long forgotten, then what else istoo late for us...amidst this century's human rubble? Maybe this is onething to value about Susan Buck-Morss' book. Any reader, knowledgeable ornot about this century's intellectual landscape, knows that there issomething missing in this story about ourselves. Something more intolerableand heartbreaking than a few missing frames from a 2 hour movie. There hasbeen a terrible human cost. We know that not all of the story has beenshown. It will be terrible to forget that we have forgotten. Thus, Benjaminwas trying to un-cover something we have all lost. This seems astounding insome way.

I disagree
Buck-Morss is very likely the most insightful and best informed scholar writing on Benjamin (or Adorno) in English today. If there are typos, misspellings, etc., they are more a sign of the declining standards in editing, even at university presses, than any reflection on Buck-Morss' scholarship. She knows the primary and secondary literature and has clearly spent much time with Benjamin's papers and in various archives. Morevoer, having written the best book I know on the philosophical relationship between Adorno and Benjamin, she is clearly well placed to provide insightful analysis the latter's unfinished masterwork. Since the Passagen-Werk is recently available in English ("The Arcades Project," Harvard Belknap Press: 1999), one can judge for oneself the worth of Buck-Morss' reading.

salon scholarship, deeply flawed first summarization
The deeper flaws in this synoptic summary are suggested by the profusion of factual errors: even names are misspelled, confirming the author's overreliance on the assertions of secondary literature without more than asuperficial understanding of the discursive context in which Benjamin'sunfinished magnum opus was prepared.Thus the flood of footnotes, over 100pages of annotation documenting a disappointing hesitance to form opinionsbased upon original research.Fortunately, Benjamin's Paris "ArcadesProject" will be appearing imminently in English translation;unfortunately all the serious scholarship or reflections on this work onlyexists in German or French. ... Read more

Book Description
Walter Benjamin said that "the realization of dream elements, in the course of waking up, is the paradigm of dialectical thinking. Thus dialectical thinking is the organ of historical awakening." This Benjaminian search and his longing for historical awakening serves as the driving force of this book. And if we are going to explore the mysteries of dreaming and the possibilities of awakening, who better than Freud to accompany us in that journey. One of my main contentions is that by bringing together Sigmund Freud and Walter Benjamin, the interpreter of dreams and the interpreter of history as dream, we encounter a productive constellation of concepts and ideas on history, politics, dreams, and their dialectical interaction. I argue that if we think about Freud and Benjamin together we will find that the historiographical proposal that comes out of this encounter can shed light on how we look at the relation between history, politics, and dialectical thinking. More importantly the Freud/Benjamin encounter provide us with an approach to history and politics that renders our understanding of the historical as a primary political problem.This book will be of interest to social scientist, political theorists, and those interested in the relation between politics and history. ... Read more

Book Description
Walter Benjamin's 1936 essay, ''The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'', revolutionized the way we look at the social function of the work of art, and the faculties with which we appreciate it. Using that essay--and its introduction of the Benjaminian notion of the aura--as a springboard, the essays collected in Benjamin's Blind Spot apply Benjamin's insights to a wide range of topics. Subjects range from Benjamin's use of hashish to an analysis of Woody Allen's Zelig, from Wallace Stevens to the early recordings of Elvis Presley, and from the dark epiphanies behind Jackson Pollock's work to the question of whether Benjamin's model is even relevant to contemporary issues. In the same volume, presented in the text's margins, is The Manual of Lost Ideas, a massive manuscript that arrived at the Institute of Cultural Inquiry via an anonymous bequest in 1955. Speculated to be thousands of years old, this is the first time the Manual has been published in over two centuries. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An exceptional book
It's been months since I've been this excited about a book that's scholarly in nature. Benjamin's Blind Spot is two books in one: a collection of essays by various authors who consider Benjamin's treatment of aura; and reproductions of the Manual of Lost Ideas, an odd compendium of art, text, and objects that was left on the doorstep of the Institute of Cultural Inquiry in the 50s.

The critical essays are brief and diverse, and their bibliographies offer useful suggestions for further reading. The impressive use of typography, editing and design made me think about aura as I read the book. And Arturo Ott's descriptions of the contents of the Manual are eerie and provocative. I highly recommend this book to any fan of Walter Benjamin. ... Read more

Book Description
Selected for honorable mention for the Morris D. Forkosch Prize in intellectual history, awarded annually by the Journal of the History of Ideas

"This sophisticated yet reader-friendly study represents a significant advance in American criticism on Walter Benjamin. . . . I endorse Irving Wohlfarth's statement that this is 'the best book-length study of Benjamin yet to have appeared in English' and enthusiastically recommend it to novice and devotee alike."--Philosophy and Literature ... Read more

Book Description

Selected and annotated by the author of the acclaimed Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, this collection of Franklin's writings shows why he was the bestselling author of his day and remains America's favorite Founder and wit.

As a twelve-year-old apprentice in his brother's print shop, Benjamin Franklin taught himself to be a writer by taking notes on the works of great essayists such as Addison and Steele, jumbling them up, and then trying to recreate them in his own words. By that method, he recalled in his Autobiography, he was encouraged to think he might become a "tolerable" writer. In fact, he became the best, most popular, and most influential writer in colonial America. His direct and practical prose shaped America's democratic character, and his homespun humor gave birth to the nation's unique brand of crackerbarrel wisdom.

This book collects dozens of Franklin's delight-ful essays and letters, along with a complete version of his Autobiography. It includes an introductory essay exploring Franklin's life and impact as a writer, and each piece is accompanied by a preface and notes that provide background, context, and analysis. Through the writings and the introductory essays, the reader can trace the development of Franklin's thinking, along with the birth of the nation he and his pen helped to invent.Download Description
"Selected and annotated by the author of the acclaimed Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, this collection of Franklin's writings shows why he was the bestselling author of his day and remains America's favorite Founder and wit. As a twelve-year-old apprentice in his brother's print shop, Benjamin Franklin taught himself to be a writer by taking notes on the works of great essayists such as Addison and Steele, jumbling them up, and then trying to recreate them in his own words. By that method, he recalled in his Autobiography, he was encouraged to think he might become a ""tolerable"" writer. In fact, he became the best, most popular, and most influential writer in colonial America. His direct and practical prose shaped America's democratic character, and his homespun humor gave birth to the nation's unique brand of crackerbarrel wisdom. This book collects dozens of Franklin's delight-ful essays and letters, along with a complete version of his Autobiography. It includes an introductory essay exploring Franklin's life and impact as a writer, and each piece is accompanied by a preface and notes that provide background, context, and analysis. Through the writings and the introductory essays, the reader can trace the development of Franklin's thinking, along with the birth of the nation he and his pen helped to invent. " ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent book.
This is a fine selection from Franklin's writings, including the entire 'Autobiography'. All texts have been judiciously chosen by the editor, arranged in chronological order and prefaced by intelligent, concise and well written introductory notes. Franklin's importance and permanence clearly emerge from the reading.

I only wish there were more excerpts from Franklin's delightful 'Poor Richard's Almanac'. The selections presented in this edition come from the Almanacs for the years 1733, 1734, 1736, 1737, 1738 and 1739, and they barely fill 15 pages. Nonetheless they might well satisfy the reader and in any event there is plenty of rarely published letters and articles from the Pennsylvania Gazette to make up for the possible lack of material from the almanacs signed by 'Richard Saunders'.

This is the perfect book to discover Franklin and also a very good one for those who already know him, thanks to the editors insightful notes and to the opportunity to review Franklin's writings in chronological order, from a historical and biographical perspective.

The Original Diplomat
This is a great collection of the writings of Benjamin Franklin.For me, the real value here lies not so much in the fact that he was a self-made man, but in the advice he gave about connecting with people and interacting with others both from a business and from a personal point of view.His ability in that area led directly to his success (along with some luck).I wish more people read the Autobiography and other papers just for that reason alone.In the long run, that may be the greatest contribution made by Ben Franklin. ... Read more

Book Description
In the English-language context, Benjamin's influence continues to grow, along with the already massive secondary literature on his writings.This collection brings together a selection of the most critically important items published in the literature on Benjamin, across the full range of his cultural-theoretical interests, from all periods of the reception of his writings, but focusing upon the most recent, to produce a near-definitive overview of the best critical literature.The main national contexts of reception represented are German, French and Anglo-American, but also included are some important items from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Latin America and East-Asia. These are mainly in English translation, with many new translations appearing here for the first time. ... Read more

Book 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. ... Read more

Book Description
is a 16th-century essay on the psychology of obedience toauthority. Its analysis of the structure of authority and the nature ofman gives brilliant insights into the age-old conflict between stateauthority and individual rights. ... Read more

Book Description
Assembled here for the first time in English translation, Sigrid Weigel and Georgina Paul offer illuminating new insights into Benjamin's theory, combining impulses from post-structuralism, feminism, cultural anthropology and psychoanalysis. ... Read more