Walter Benjamin: Images, the Creaturely, and the Holy (Cultural Memory in the Present)

Walter Benjamin: Images, the Creaturely, and the Holy (Cultural Memory in the Present)

by Sigrid Weigel (Author), Chadwick Truscott Smith (Translator)

Synopsis

Arguing that the importance of painting and other visual art for Benjamin's epistemology has yet to be appreciated, Weigel undertakes the first systematic analysis of their significance to his thought. She does so by exploring Benjamin's dialectics of secularization, an approach that allows Benjamin to explore the simultaneous distance from and orientation towards revelation and to deal with the difference and tensions between religious and profane ideas. In the process, Weigel identifies the double reference of 'life' to both nature and to a 'supernatural' sphere as a guiding concept of Benjamin's writings. Sensitive to the notorious difficulty of translating his language, she underscores just how much is lost in translation, particularly with regard to religious connotations. The book thus positions Benjamin with respect to the other European thinkers at the heart of current discussions of sovereignty and martyrdom, of holy and creaturely life. It corrects misreadings, including Agamben's staging of an affinity between Benjamin and Schmitt, and argues for the closeness of Benjamin's work to that of Aby Warburg, with whom Benjamin unsuccessfully attempted an intellectual exchange.

$32.23

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Illustrated
Pages: 320
Edition: 1
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 15 Jan 2013

ISBN 10: 0804780609
ISBN 13: 9780804780605

Media Reviews
Weigel's readings, which are steeped in philological detail and hermeneutic insight, brilliantly exhibit the stakes involved in approaching Benjamin's work anew. Her impeccable sense for intertextual trajectories coupled with broad erudition not only results in sophisticated exegeses, but also amply demonstrate the continued if not urgent relevance of Benjamin's interventions for our current intellectual and cultural concerns. -- John T. Hamilton
Weigel (director, Center for Literary and Cultural Research, Berlin) offers a meticulous exploration of the German writer Walter Benjamin's take on creaturely existence, law, sovereignty, secularization and holiness, language, and art. -- M. V. Marder * CHOICE *
Author Bio
Sigrid Weigel is Director of the Center for Literary and Cultural Research in Berlin.