Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (ˈvaltɐ ˈbɛnjamiːn, 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German-Jewish
intellectualAn intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
, who functioned variously as a
literary criticLiterary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
,
philosopherPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
,
sociologistSociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
,
translatorTranslation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
,
radio broadcasterRadio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
and essayist. His work, combining elements of
German idealismGerman idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was closely linked both with romanticism and the revolutionary politics of the Enlightenment...
or Romanticism,
Historical MaterialismHistorical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx as "the materialist conception of history". Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans...
and Jewish
mysticismMysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
, has made enduring and influential contributions to
aesthetic theoryAesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
and
Western MarxismWestern Marxism is a term used to describe a wide variety of Marxist theoreticians based in Western and Central Europe, in contrast with philosophy in the Soviet Union...
, and has sometimes been associated with the
Frankfurt SchoolThe Frankfurt School refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main...
of
critical theoryCritical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...
. As a
literary criticLiterary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
, among his major works are essays on
GoetheJohann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
's novel
Elective AffinitiesElective Affinities , also translated under the title Kindred by Choice, is the third novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, published in 1809. The title is taken from a scientific term once used to describe the tendency of chemical species to combine with certain substances or species in preference...
; the work of
Franz KafkaFranz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
and
Karl KrausKarl Kraus was an Austrian writer and journalist, known as a satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet. He is regarded as one of the foremost German-language satirists of the 20th century, especially for his witty criticism of the press, German culture, and German and Austrian...
;
translation theoryTranslation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
; the stories of
Nikolai LeskovNikolai Semyonovich Leskov was a Russian journalist, novelist and short story writer, who also wrote under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky. Praised for his unique writing style and innovative experiments in form, held in high esteem by Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky among others, Leskov is...
; the work of
Marcel ProustValentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
and perhaps most significantly, the poetry of
Charles BaudelaireCharles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
. He also made major translations into German of the
Tableaux Parisiens section of Baudelaire's
Les Fleurs du malLes Fleurs du mal is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. First published in 1857 , it was important in the symbolist and modernist movements...
and parts of Proust's
À la recherche du temps perduIn Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past is a novel in seven volumes by Marcel Proust. His most prominent work, it is popularly known for its considerable length and the notion of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the madeleine." The novel is widely...
.
His turn to Marxism in the 1930s was partly due to the influence of
Bertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
, whose
critical aestheticsMarxist aesthetics is a theory of aesthetics based on, or derived from, the theories of Karl Marx. It involves a dialectical approach to the application of Marxism to the cultural sphere, specifically areas related to taste such as art, beauty, etc...
developed
epic theatreEpic theatre was a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners, including Erwin Piscator, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold and, most famously, Bertolt Brecht...
and its
Verfremdungseffekt (defamiliarisation, alienation). An earlier influence was friend
Gershom ScholemGerhard Scholem who, after his immigration from Germany to Palestine, changed his name to Gershom Scholem , was a German-born Israeli Jewish philosopher and historian, born and raised in Germany...
, founder of the academic study of the
KabbalahKabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
and of Jewish mysticism.
Influenced by the Swiss anthropologist Johann Jakob Bachofen (1815–87), Walter Benjamin coined the term “auratic perception”, denoting the aesthetic faculty by means of which civilization may recover an appreciation of myth. Benjamin's work is often cited in academic and literary studies, especially the essays "The Task of the Translator" (1923) and "
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" is a 1936 essay by German cultural critic Walter Benjamin, which has been influential across the humanities, and especially in the fields of cultural studies, media theory, architectural theory and art history...
" (1936).
Life
Walter Benjamin and his younger brother, Georg (1895–1942), and younger sister, Dora (1901–46), were born to a wealthy business family of assimilated Jews in the Berlin of the
German EmpireThe German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
(1871–1918). The patriarch, Emil Benjamin, was a banker in Paris who relocated from France to Germany, where he worked as an antiques trader in Berlin; he later married Pauline Schönflies. He owned a number of investments in Berlin, including ice skating rinks. In 1902, ten-year-old Walter was enrolled to the Kaiser Friedrich School in
CharlottenburgCharlottenburg is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, named after Queen consort Sophia Charlotte...
; he completed his secondary school studies ten years later. Personally, Walter Benjamin was a boy of fragile health, so, in 1905, the family sent him to
boarding schoolA boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
in the
ThuringiaThe Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....
n countryside, for two years; in 1907, returned to Berlin, his schooling resumed at the Kaiser Friedrich School.
In 1912, at the age of twenty, he enrolled at the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg, but, at summer semester's end, returned to Berlin, then matriculated into the
Humboldt University of BerlinThe Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...
, to continue studying philosophy. Elected president of the
Freie Studentenschaft (Free Students Association), Benjamin wrote essays arguing for educational and general cultural change. When not re-elected as student association president, he returned to Freiburg University, and studied, with particular attention to the lectures of
Heinrich RickertHeinrich John Rickert was a German philosopher, one of the leading Neo-Kantians.-Life:He was born in Danzig, Prussia and died in Heidelberg, Germany.-Thought:...
; in that time he travelled to France and Italy.
In 1914, as Germany and France fought each other in the
First World WarWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
(1914–18), the intellectual Walter Benjamin began faithfully translating the works of the 19th-century French poet
Charles BaudelaireCharles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
(1821–67). The next year, 1915, he moved to Munich, and continued his schooling at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where he met
Rainer Maria RilkeRené Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke , better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language...
and
Gershom ScholemGerhard Scholem who, after his immigration from Germany to Palestine, changed his name to Gershom Scholem , was a German-born Israeli Jewish philosopher and historian, born and raised in Germany...
; the latter became a friend. In that year, Benjamin wrote about the 18th-century
RomanticRomanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
German poet
Friedrich HölderlinJohann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism. Hölderlin was also an important thinker in the development of German Idealism, particularly his early association with and philosophical influence on his...
(1770–1843).
In 1917 he transferred to the University of Bern; there, he met Ernst Bloch, and Dora Sophie Pollak (née Kellner) (1890–1964), whom he later married, and they had a son, Stefan Rafael (1918–72). In 1919 Benjamin earned his
doctoral degreeA Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
cum laude with the dissertation essay
Begriff der Kunstkritik in der Deutschen Romantik (The Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism). Later, unable to support himself and family, the Benjamins returned to Berlin, and resided with his parents; in 1921, he published the essay
Kritik der Gewalt (The Critique of Violence). At this time, Benjamin first became socially acquainted with
Leo StraussLeo Strauss was a political philosopher and classicist who specialized in classical political philosophy. He was born in Germany to Jewish parents and later emigrated to the United States...
, and would remain an admirer of him and of his work throughout his life.
In 1923, when the
Institut für SozialforschungThe Institute for Social Research is a research organization for sociology and continental philosophy, best known as the institutional home of the Frankfurt School and critical theory....
(Institute for Social Research) was founded, and later became home to the
Frankfurt SchoolThe Frankfurt School refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main...
, he published
Charles Baudelaire, Tableaux Parisiens. In that time he became acquainted with Theodor Adorno and befriended
Georg LukácsGyörgy Lukács was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic. He is a founder of the tradition of Western Marxism. He contributed the concept of reification to Marxist philosophy and theory and expanded Karl Marx's theory of class consciousness. Lukács' was also an influential literary...
, whose
The Theory of the Novel (1920) much influenced him. Meanwhile, the
inflation in the Weimar RepublicThe hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic was a three year period of hyperinflation in Germany between June 1921 and July 1924.- Analysis :...
, consequent to the First World War, made it difficult for the businessman Emil Benjamin to continue supporting his intellectual son's family, Walter, Dora, and Stefan. At year's end of 1923, his best friend, Gershom Scholem, emigrated to Palestine, a country ruled under the British Mandate of Palestine; despite repeated invitations, he failed to persuade Walter Benjamin (and family) to leave the Continent for the Middle East.
In 1924, Hugo von Hoffmansthal, in the
Neue Deutsche Beiträge magazine, published
Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften (
Goethe’s Elective AffinitiesElective Affinities , also translated under the title Kindred by Choice, is the third novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, published in 1809. The title is taken from a scientific term once used to describe the tendency of chemical species to combine with certain substances or species in preference...
), by Walter Benjamin, about Goethe’s third novel,
Die Wahlverwandtschaften (1809). Later that year, Benjamin and Ernst Bloch resided in the Italian island of
CapriCapri is an Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region of Southern Italy...
; Benjamin wrote
Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiel (The Origin of German Tragic Drama), as an
habilitationHabilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...
dissertation meant to qualify him as a tenured university professor in Germany. He also read, at Bloch’s suggestion,
History and Class ConsciousnessHistory and Class Consciousness is a book by Georg Lukács, written in 1923. Class consciousness, as described by Lukács, is opposed to any psychological conception of consciousness, which forms the basis of individual or mass psychology . According to Lukács, each social class has a determined...
(1923), by Georg Lukács. In the event, he also met the Latvian Bolshevik and actress
Asja LācisAsja Lācis was a Latvian actress and theatre director. A Bolshevik, she became famous for her proletarian theatre for children and agitprop. In 1922 she moved to Germany where she got to know Bertholt Brecht and Erwin Piscator, who she introduced to Vsevolod Meyerhold and Vladimir Mayakovsky.In...
, then residing in Moscow; she became his lover and was a lasting intellectual influence upon him.
A year later, in 1925, the Goethe University Frankfurt, at Franfurt am main, rejected
The Origin of German Tragic Drama as Benjamin’s qualification for the
habilitationHabilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...
teaching credential; he was not to be an academic instructor. Working with
Franz HesselFranz Hessel was a German writer and translator.With Walter Benjamin, he produced a German translation of Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu....
(1880–1941), he translated the first volumes of
À la Recherche du Temps Perdu (In Search of Lost Time), by
Marcel ProustValentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
. The next year, 1926, he began writing for the German newspapers
Frankfurter ZeitungThe Frankfurter Zeitung was a German language newspaper that appeared from 1856 to 1943. It emerged from a market letter that was published in Frankfurt...
(The Frankfurt Times) and
Die Literarische Welt (The Literary World), that paid enough for him to reside in Paris for some months. In December 1926 (the year his father, Emil Benjamin, died), Walter Benjamin went to Moscow to meet Asja Lācis, and found her ill, in a sanatorium.
In 1927, he began
Das Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project), his incompleted
magnum opusMagnum opus , from the Latin meaning "great work", refers to the largest, and perhaps the best, greatest, most popular, or most renowned achievement of a writer, artist, or composer.-Related terms:Sometimes the term magnum opus is used to refer to simply "a great work" rather than "the...
, a study of 19th-century Parisian life. The same year, he saw Gershom Scholem in Berlin, for the last time, and considered emigrating from Continental Europe (Germany) to Palestine. In 1928, he and Dora separated, then divorced two years later, in 1930; he published
Einbahnstraße (One-Way Street), and a revision of his
habilitation dissertation
Ursprung des Deutschen Trauerspiels (The Origin of German Tragic Drama). In 1929 Berlin, Asja Lācis, then assistant to
Bertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
, socially presented the intellectuals to each other. In that time, he also briefly embarked upon an academic career, as an instructor at the University of Heidelberg.
In 1932, during the turmoil preceding
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
’s assumption of the office of Chancellor of Germany, Walter Benjamin left Germany for the Spanish island of
IbizaIbiza or Eivissa is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea 79 km off the coast of the city of Valencia in Spain. It is the third largest of the Balearic Islands, an autonomous community of Spain. With Formentera, it is one of the two Pine Islands or Pityuses. Its largest cities are Ibiza...
for some months; he then moved to
NiceNice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
, where he considered killing himself. Perceiving the socio-political and cultural significance of the
Reichstag fireThe Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The event is seen as pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany....
(27 February 1933) as the
de facto Nazi assumption of full power in Germany, then manifest with the subsequent
persecution of the JewsThe racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany, asserting the superiority of the "Aryan race", and based on a specific racist doctrine which claimed scientific legitimacy...
, he moved to Paris, but, before doing so, he sought shelter in
SvendborgSvendborg is a town on the island of Funen in south-central Denmark. The town is in Svendborg municipality . Svendborg is the second-largest city on Funen and has a population of 27,009 ....
, at Bertold Brecht's house, and at
SanremoSanremo or San Remo is a city with about 57,000 inhabitants on the Mediterranean coast of western Liguria in north-western Italy. Founded in Roman times, the city is best known as a tourist destination on the Italian Riviera. It hosts numerous cultural events, such as the Sanremo Music Festival...
, where his ex-wife Dora lived.
As he ran out of money, Benjamin collaborated with
Max HorkheimerMax Horkheimer was a German-Jewish philosopher-sociologist, famous for his work in critical theory as a member of the 'Frankfurt School' of social research. His most important works include The Eclipse of Reason and, in collaboration with Theodor Adorno, The Dialectic of Enlightenment...
, and received funds from the Institute for Social Research, later going permanently into exile. In Paris, he met other German artists and intellectuals refuged there from Germany; he befriended
Hannah ArendtHannah Arendt was a German American political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact...
, novelist
Hermann HesseHermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...
, and composer
Kurt WeillKurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
. In 1936,
L'Œuvre d'Art à l'Époque de sa Reproductibilité Technique"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" is a 1936 essay by German cultural critic Walter Benjamin, which has been influential across the humanities, and especially in the fields of cultural studies, media theory, architectural theory and art history...
(The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction) was first published, in French, by Max Horkheimer in the
Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung journal of the Institute for Social Research.
In 1937 Benjamin worked on
Das Paris des Second Empire bei Baudelaire (The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire), met
Georges BatailleGeorges Bataille was a French writer. His multifaceted work is linked to the domains of literature, anthropology, philosophy, economy, sociology and history of art...
(to whom he later entrusted the
Arcades Project manuscript), and joined the
College of SociologyThe College of Sociology was a loosely-knit group of French intellectuals, named after the informal discussion series that they organized...
. In 1938 he paid a last visit to Bertolt Brecht, who was exiled to Denmark. Meanwhile, the
Nazi RégimeNazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
stripped German Jews of their German citizenship; now a stateless man, the French government arrested and for three months incarcerated Walter Benjamin in a prison camp near
NeversNevers is a commune in – and the administrative capital of – the Nièvre department in the Bourgogne region in central France...
, in central Burgundy.
Returning to Paris in January 1940, he wrote
Über den Begriff der Geschichte (Theses on the Philosophy of History). As the
WehrmachtThe Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
defeated the French defence, on 13 June, Benjamin and his sister fled Paris to the town of
LourdesLourdes is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in south-western France.Lourdes is a small market town lying in the foothills of the Pyrenees, famous for the Marian apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes occurred in 1858 to Bernadette Soubirous...
, a day before the Germans entered Paris (14 June 1940), with orders to arrest him at his flat. In August, he obtained a travel visa to the US that Max Horkheimer had negotiated for him. In eluding the
GestapoThe Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
, Benjamin planned to travel to the US from neutral
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, which he expected to reach via
fascist SpainFrancoist Spain refers to a period of Spanish history between 1936 and 1975 when Spain was under the authoritarian dictatorship of Francisco Franco....
, then ostensibly a neutral country.
The historical record indicates he safely crossed the French-Spanish border and arrived at the coastal town of
PortbouPortbou is a town in the Alt Empordà county, in Girona province, Catalonia, Spain. It has a population of 1,307 people.- Overview :It is located near the French border in the Costa Brava region, and frequently serves as a dropping off point for SNCF trains coming from Cerbère in France.Portbou...
, in
CataloniaCatalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
. The Franco government had cancelled all transit visas and ordered the Spanish police to return such persons to France, including the Jewish refugee group Benjamin had joined. Expecting repatriation to Nazi hands, Walter Benjamin killed himself with an overdose of morphine tablets on the night of 25 September 1940; the official Portbou register records 26 September 1940 as the official date of death.
Works
Among Walter Benjamin’s works are:
- Zur Kritik der Gewalt (Critique of Violence, 1921).
- Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften (Goethe’s Elective Affinities, 1922).
- Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels (Origin of German Tragic Drama, 1928).
- Einbahnstraße (One Way Street, 1928).
- "Karl Kraus
Karl Kraus was an Austrian writer and journalist, known as a satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet. He is regarded as one of the foremost German-language satirists of the 20th century, especially for his witty criticism of the press, German culture, and German and Austrian...
" (1931 in the Frankfurter ZeitungThe Frankfurter Zeitung was a German language newspaper that appeared from 1856 to 1943. It emerged from a market letter that was published in Frankfurt...
).
- Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit (The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" is a 1936 essay by German cultural critic Walter Benjamin, which has been influential across the humanities, and especially in the fields of cultural studies, media theory, architectural theory and art history...
, 1936).
- Berliner Kindheit um 1900 (Berlin Childhood around 1900, 1950).
- Über den Begriff der Geschichte (On the Concept of History / Theses on the Philosophy of History
Theses on the Philosophy in History is an essay written in 1940 by German philosopher and critic Walter Benjamin....
), 1940.
- Das Paris des Second Empire bei Baudelaire (The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire, 1938).
Walter Benjamin corresponded much with Theodor Adorno and
Bertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
, and was occasionally funded by the
Frankfurt SchoolThe Frankfurt School refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main...
under the direction of Adorno and
HorkheimerThe surname Horkheimer may refer to:* Max Horkheimer, Jewish-German philosopher and sociologist* Rudolf Horkheimer , German engineer* Jack Horkheimer, American astronomer and television host...
, even from their New York City residence. The competing influences — Brecht’s Marxism, Adorno’s
critical theoryCritical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...
, Gerschom Scholem’s Jewish mysticism — were central to his work, although their philosophic differences remained unresolved. Moreover, the critic
Paul de ManPaul de Man was a Belgian-born deconstructionist literary critic and theorist.He began teaching at Bard College. Later, he completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University in the late 1950s...
argued that the intellectual range of Benjamin’s writings flows dynamically among those three intellectual traditions, deriving a critique via juxtaposition; the exemplar synthesis is "On the Concept of History" (
Theses on the Philosophy of History).
The ninth thesis in the essay “Theses on the Philosophy of History” presents:
The Origin of German Tragic Drama
Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels (
The Origin of German Tragic DramaThe Origin of German Tragic Drama or Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels was the doctoral dissertation submitted by Walter Benjamin to the University of Frankfurt in 1925, and was later published as Benjamin's first and only book. The book is a study of German drama during the baroque period and...
, 1928), is a critical study of German baroque drama, as well as the political and cultural climate of Germany during the
Counter-ReformationThe Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:#Ecclesiastical or...
(1545–1648). Benjamin presented the work to the University of Frankfurt in 1925 as the (post-doctoral) dissertation meant to earn him the
HabilitationHabilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...
(qualification) to become a university instructor in Germany.
Professor Schultz of University of Frankfurt found
The Origin of German Tragic Drama inappropriate for his
Germanistik department (Department of German Language and Literature), and passed it to the Department of Aesthetics (philosophy of art), the readers of which likewise dismissed Benjamin's work. The faculty, among them
Max HorkheimerMax Horkheimer was a German-Jewish philosopher-sociologist, famous for his work in critical theory as a member of the 'Frankfurt School' of social research. His most important works include The Eclipse of Reason and, in collaboration with Theodor Adorno, The Dialectic of Enlightenment...
, recommended that Benjamin withdraw
Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels as a
Habilitation dissertation to avoid formal rejection and public embarrassment. He heeded the advice, and three years later, in 1928, he published
The Origin of German Tragic Drama as a book.
The Arcades Project
The
PassagenwerkThe Passagenwerk or Arcades Project was an unfinished lifelong project of philosopher Walter Benjamin, an enormous collection of writings on the city life of Paris in the 19th century, especially concerned with the iron-and-glass covered "arcades"...
(Arcades Project, 1927–40), was Walter Benjamin’s final, incomplete book about Parisian city life in the 19th century, especially about the
Passages couverts de Paris the covered passages that extended the culture of
flânerieThe term flâneur comes from the French masculine noun flâneur—which has the basic meanings of "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", "loafer"—which itself comes from the French verb flâner, which means "to stroll". Charles Baudelaire developed a derived meaning of flâneur—that of "a person who walks...
(idling and people-watching) when inclement weather made
flânerie infeasible in the boulevards and streets proper.
Writing style
Susan SontagSusan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
said that in Walter Benjamin’s writing, sentences did not originate ordinarily, do not progress into one another, and delineate no obvious line of reasoning, as if each sentence “had to say everything, before the inward gaze of total concentration dissolved the subject before his eyes”, a “freeze-frame baroque” style of writing and cogitation. “His major essays seem to end just in time, before they self-destruct”. The difficulty of Benjamin's writing style is essential to his philosophical project. Fascinated by notions of reference and constellation, his goal in later works was to use
intertextsIntertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. It can include an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. The term “intertextuality” has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined...
to reveal aspects of the past that cannot, and should not, be understood within greater, monolithic constructs of historical understanding.
Walter Benjamin’s writings identify him as a
modernistModernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
for whom the philosophic merges with the literary: logical philosophic reasoning cannot account for all experience, especially not for self-representation via art. He presented his stylistic concerns in
The Task of the Translator, wherein he posits that a literary translation, by definition, produces deformations and misunderstandings of the original text. Moreover, in the deformed text, otherwise hidden aspects of the original, source-language text are elucidated, while previously obvious aspects become unreadable. Such translational mortification of the source text is productive; when placed in a specific constellation of works and ideas, newly revealed affinities, between historical objects, appear and are productive of philosophical truth.
Death
Benjamin committed suicide in
PortbouPortbou is a town in the Alt Empordà county, in Girona province, Catalonia, Spain. It has a population of 1,307 people.- Overview :It is located near the French border in the Costa Brava region, and frequently serves as a dropping off point for SNCF trains coming from Cerbère in France.Portbou...
at the French–Spanish border while attempting to escape from the
NazisNazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
. The people he was with were told by the Spanish police that they would be deported back to France, which would have hampered Benjamin's plans to get to the United States. While staying in the
Hotel de Francia, he apparently took some morphine pills and died on the night of 25/26 September 1940.
The fact that he was buried in the
consecratedConsecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service, usually religious. The word "consecration" literally means "to associate with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different groups...
section of a Roman Catholic cemetery would indicate that his death was not announced as a suicide. The others in his party were allowed passage the next day, and safely reached
LisbonLisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
on 30 September. A manuscript of Benjamin's "On the Concept of History" was passed to Theodor Adorno by
Hannah ArendtHannah Arendt was a German American political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact...
, who crossed the French-Spanish border at Portbou a few months later, and was subsequently published by the Institute for Social Research (temporarily relocated to New York) in 1942.
A completed manuscript, which Benjamin had carried in his suitcase, disappeared after his death and has not been recovered. Some critics speculate that it was his
Arcades Project in a final form; this is very unlikely as the author's plans for the work had changed in the wake of Adorno's criticisms in 1938, and it seems clear that the work was flowing over its containing limits in his last years. As the last finished piece of work from Benjamin, the
Theses on the Philosophy of History (noted above) is often cited; Adorno claimed this had been written in the spring of 1940, weeks before the Germans invaded France.
While this is not completely certain, it is clearly one of his last works, and the final paragraph, about the Jewish quest for the
MessiahA messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
provides a harrowing final point to Benjamin's work, with its themes of culture, destruction, Jewish heritage and the fight between humanity and nihilism. He brings up the interdiction, in some varieties of Judaism, to try to determine the year when the Messiah would come into the world, and points out that this did not make Jews indifferent to the future "for every second of time was the strait gate through which the Messiah might enter."
Legacy
Since the publication of
Schriften (Writings, 1955), fifteen years after his death, the work of Walter Benjamin, especially the essay
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" is a 1936 essay by German cultural critic Walter Benjamin, which has been influential across the humanities, and especially in the fields of cultural studies, media theory, architectural theory and art history...
(1936), is of seminal importance to academics in the humanities disciplines.
Primary literature
- The Arcades Project, Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
, ISBN 0-674-00802-2
- Berlin Childhood Around 1900, Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
, ISBN 0-674-02222-X
- Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet In The Era Of High Capitalism. ISBN 0-902308-94-7
- The Complete Correspondence, 1928-1940, Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
, ISBN 0-674-15427-4
- The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910–1940. ISBN 0-226-04237-5
- The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem. ISBN 0-674-17415-1
- Illuminations. ISBN 0-8052-0241-2
- Moscow Diary, Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
, ISBN 0-674-58744-8
- One Way Street and Other Writings. ISBN 0-86091-836-X
- Reflections. ISBN 0-8052-0802-X
- On Hashish, Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
, ISBN 0-674-02221-1
- The Origin of German Tragic Drama. ISBN 0-86091-837-8
- Understanding Brecht. ISBN 0-902308-99-8
- Selected Writings in four volumes Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
:
- The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire, Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
, ISBN 0-674-02287-4,
- The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media, Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
, ISBN 0-674-02445-1
- Walter Benjamin's Archive: Images, Texts, Signs. Edited by Ursula Marx, Gudrun Schwarz, Michael Schwarz, Erdmut Wizisla. ISBN 978-1-84467-196-0
Secondary literature
- Adorno, Theodor. (1967). Prisms (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought). London: Neville Spearman Ltd. [reprinted by MIT Press
The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts .-History:...
, Cambridge, 1981. ISBN 978-0-262-01064-1 (cloth) -- ISBN 978-0-262-51025-7 (paper)]
- Victor Malsey, Uwe Raseh, Peter Rautmann, Nicolas Schalz, Rosi Huhn, Passages. D'après Walter Benjamin / Passagen. Nach Walter Benjamin. Mainz: Herman Schmidt, 1992. ISBN 3-87439-251-1
- Benjamin
Andrew Benjamin is an Australian philosopher and Professor of Critical Theory at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Benjamin first came to critical attention with his writings in continental philosophy, writing articles and editing books on the thinking of Martin Heidegger, Theodor Adorno,...
, Andrew and Peter Osborne, eds. (1993). Walter Benjamin's Philosophy: Destruction and Experience. London: RoutledgeRoutledge is a British publishing house which has operated under a succession of company names and latterly as an academic imprint. Its origins may be traced back to the 19th-century London bookseller George Routledge...
. ISBN 978-0-415-08368-3 (cloth) -- ISBN 978-0-415-08369-0 (paper) [reprinted by Clinamen Press, Manchester, 2000. ISBN 978-1-903083-08-6 (paper)]
- Buck-Morss, Susan. (1991). The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project. Cambridge: The MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-02268-2 (cloth) -- ISBN 978-0-262-52164-2 (paper)
- Betancourt, Alex. (2008). Walter Benjamin and Sigmund Freud: Between Theory and Politics. Saarbrücken, Germany: VDM Verlag. ISBN 978-3-8364-3854-4
- Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
, Jacques. (2001). "Force of Law: The 'Mystical Foundation of Authority'," in Acts of Religion, Gil Anidjar, ed. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-92400-9 (cloth) -- ISBN 978-0-415-92401-6
- de Man, Paul
Paul de Man was a Belgian-born deconstructionist literary critic and theorist.He began teaching at Bard College. Later, he completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University in the late 1950s...
. (1986). "'Conclusions': Walter Benjamin's 'Task of the Translator'," in The Resistance to Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 73–105. ISBN 0-8166-1294-3
- Ferris, David S., ed. (1996). Walter Benjamin: Theoretical Questions. Stanford: Stanford University Press
The Stanford University Press is the publishing house of Stanford University. In 1892, an independent publishing company was established at the university. The first use of the name "Stanford University Press" in a book's imprinting occurred in 1895...
. ISBN 978-0-8047-2569-9 (cloth) -- ISBN 978-0-8047-2570-5 (paper)
- __________. (2004). http://books.google.com/books?id=kIlRQ9Ngc54C&dq=walter+benjamin+theoretical+questions+isbn&pg=PP1&ots=vyP6i5pTRh&source=citation&sig=xA35VE8MKBAl2qYpI0vNIHchrh8&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=Walter+Benjamin:+Theoretical+Questions+ISBN&btnG=Search&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=1&cad=bottom-3resultsThe Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin.] Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
. ISBN 0-521-79329-7 (cloth) ISBN 0-521-79724-1 (paper)
- Gandler, Stefan (2010). "The Concept of History in Walter Benjamin’s Critical Theory," in Radical Philosophy Review, San Francisco, CA, Vol. 13, Nr. 1, pp. 19-42. ISSN 1388-4441.
- Jacobs, Carol. (1999). In the Language of Walter Benjamin. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-6031-7 (cloth) -- ISBN 978-0-8018-6669-2 (paper)
- Jennings, Michael. (1987). Dialectical Images: Walter Benjamin's Theory of Literary Criticism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press
The Cornell University Press, established in 1869 but inactive from 1884 to 1930, was the first university publishing enterprise in the United States.A division of Cornell University, it is housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage....
. ISBN 978-0-8014-2006-1 (cloth)
- Jacobson, Eric. (2003). Metaphysics of the Profane: The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem. New York: Columbia University Press, ISBN 978-0-231-12657-1, S. 352ff.
- Kermode, Frank. "Every Kind of Intelligence; Benjamin," New York Times. 30 July 1978.
- Kirst-Gundersen, Karoline. Walter Benjamin's Theory of Narrative. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1989
- Leslie, Esther. (2000). Walter Benjamin, Overpowering Conformism. London: Pluto Press
Pluto Press is a radical, progressive, independent publisher based in London. Pluto Press specialises in "progressive, critical perspectives in politics and the social sciences", and describes itself as "one of the world’s leading radical publishers". It has published authors such as Noam Chomsky,...
. ISBN 978-0-7453-1573-7 (cloth) -- ISBN 978-0-7453-1568-3 (paper)
- Lindner, Burkhardt, ed. (2006). Benjamin-Handbuch: Leben – Werk – Wirkung Stuttgart: Metzler
-People:*Alex Metzler , American baseballer*Chris Metzler, American filmmaker*Jim Metzler, American television and film actor*John C. Metzler, Jr. , current superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia...
. ISBN 978-3-476-01985-1 (paper)
- Löwy, Michael. (2005). Fire Alarm: Reading Walter Benjamin's ‘On the Concept of History.’ Trans. Chris Turner. London and New York: Verso.
- Menke, Bettine. (2010). Das Trauerspiel-Buch. Der Souverän – das Trauerspiel – Konstellationen – Ruinen. Bielefeld: transcript-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-89942-634-2.
- Missac, Pierre (1996). Walter Benjamin's Passages. Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-13305-0 (cloth) -- ISBN 978-0-262-63175-4(paper)
- Perret, Catherine
Catherine Perret is associate professor of modern and contemporary aesthetics and theory at Nanterre University . She obtained her Ph.D. in philosophy and is known for her work on Walter Benjamin, most notably by her book "Walter Benjamin ou la critique en effet". Dr. Perret was the director of the...
"Walter Benjamin sans destin", Ed. La Différence, Paris, 1992, rééd. revue et augmentée d'une préface, Bruxelles, éd. La Lettre volée, 2007.
- Perrier, Florent, ed., Palmier, Jean-Michel (Author), Marc Jimenez (Preface). (2006) Walter Benjamin. Le chiffonnier, l'Ange et le Petit Bossu. Paris: Klincksieck. ISBN 978-2-252-03591-7
- Pignotti, Sandro (2009): Walter Benjamin - Judentum und Literatur. Tradition, Ursprung, Lehre mit einer kurzen Geschichte des Zionismus. Rombach, Freiburg ISBN 978-3-7930-9547-7
- Plate, S. Brent (2004) Walter Benjamin, Religion and Aesthetics. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-96992-5
- Roberts, Julian (1982). Walter Benjamin. London: Macmillan.
- Rudel, Tilla (2006) : Walter Benjamin L’Ange assassiné, éd. Menges - Place Des Victoires, 2006
- Scheurmann, Ingrid, ed., Scheurmann, Konrad ed., Unseld, Siegfried (Author), Menninghaus, Winfried (Author), Timothy Nevill (Translator) (1993). For Walter Benjamin - Documentation, Essays and a Sketch including: New Documents on Walter Benjamin's Death. Bonn: AsKI e.V. ISBN 3-930370-00-X
- Scheurmann, Ingrid / Scheurmann, Konrad (1995). Dani Karavan - Hommage an Walter Benjamin. Der Gedenkort 'Passagen' in Portbou. Homage to Walter Benjamin. 'Passages' Place of Remembrance at Portbou. Mainz: Zabern. ISBN 3-8053-1865-0
- Scheurmann, Konrad (1994) Passages Dani Karavan: An Environment in Remembrance of Walter Benjamin Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Bonn: AsKI e.V. ISBN 3-930370-01-8
- Schiavoni, Giulio. (2001). Walter Benjamin: Il figlio della felicità. Un percorso biografico e concettuale. Turin: Giulio Einaudi Editore
Giulio Einaudi was one of the most important publishers in Italian history.-Biography:Giulio Einaudi was born in Dogliani in 1912, the son of Luigi Einaudi, future president of the Italian Republic, and his wife Ida.He attended the Massimo d'Azeglio liceo classico, and became a student of noted...
. ISBN 88-06-15729-9
- Scholem, Gershom. (2003). Walter Benjamin: The Story of a Friendship. Trans. Harry Zohn. New York: New York Review Books. ISBN 1-59017-032-6
- Steinberg, Michael P., ed. (1996). Walter Benjamin and the Demands of History. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-3135-7 (cloth) -- ISBN 978-0-8014-8257-1 (paper)
- Steiner, Uwe. (2010). Walter Benjamin: An Introduction to his Work and Thought. Trans. Michael Winkler. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-2267-7221-9
- Taussig, Michael. (2006). Walter Benjamin's Grave Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226790046.
- Weber, Samuel. (2008). Benjamin's -abilities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-02837-6 (cloth) -- ISBN 0-674-04606-4 (paper)
- Witte, Bernd. (1996). Walter Benjamin: An Intellectual Biography. New York: Verso. ISBN 978-1-85984-967-5
- Wizisla, Erdmut. 2009. Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht — The Story of a Friendship. Translated by Christine Shuttleworth. London / New Haven: Libris / Yale University Press. ISBN 978-1-870352-78-9 [Contains a complete translation of the newly discovered Minutes of the meetings around the putative journal Krise und Kritik (1931)].
- Wolin, Richard, Telos 43, An Aesthetic of Redemption: Benjamin's Path to Trauerspiel. New York: Telos Press Ltd., Spring 1980. (Telos Press).
- Wolin, Richard, Telos 53, The Benjamin-Congress: Frankfurt (July 13, 1982). New York: Telos Press Ltd., Fall 1982. (Telos Press).
External links
- Walter Benjamin, at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a freely-accessible online encyclopedia of philosophy maintained by Stanford University. Each entry is written and maintained by an expert in the field, including professors from over 65 academic institutions worldwide...
- The Internationale Walter Benjamin Gesellschaft. In English and German. (Defunct)
- Walter Benjamin at Marxists.org
- Fragments of the Passagenwerk: The Arcades Project, Giles Peaker
- Protocols to the Experiments on Hashish, Opium and Mescaline Translated by Scott J. Thompson, copyright March 25, 1997
- From 'Rausch' to Rebellion An introductory essay by Scott J. Thompson
- Paris, capitale du XIXe siècle In French
- Walter Benjamin Research Syndicate
- "Walter Benjamin for Historians", American Historical Review
The American Historical Review is the official publication of the American Historical Association, established in 1895 "for the promotion of historical studies, the collection and preservation of historical documents and artifacts, and the dissemination of historical research." It targets readers...
, Vol. 106, No. 5. December 2001.
- Who Killed Walter Benjamin..., (Spain/The Netherlands/Germany, 2005, 73 min.) a documentary film about the circumstances of Benjamin's death by David Mauas
- Paris, capital of 19th century, an essay/experimental film about the Passagen-Werk by Benjamin Bardou, France, 2010, 10'
- The Mysterious Death of Walter Benjamin, Stephen Schwartz, The Weekly Standard, Volume 006, Issue 37, 11 June 2001
- Through the Trapdoor: review of The Narrow Foothold by Carina Birman describes Benjamin's final days
- The Arcades Project or The Rhetoric of Hypertext, Heather Marcelle Crickenberger
- The Dialectics of Allegoresis: Historical Materialism in Benjamin's Illuminations, John Parker
- Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project - The Passagenwerk