Walter Benjamin: Images, the Creaturely, and the Holy - Couverture rigide

Livre 166 sur 213: Cultural Memory in the Present

Weigel, Sigrid

 
9780804780599: Walter Benjamin: Images, the Creaturely, and the Holy

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.

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À propos de l?auteur

Sigrid Weigel is Director of the Center for Literary and Cultural Research in Berlin.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9780804780605: Walter Benjamin: Images, the Creaturely, and the Holy

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  0804780609 ISBN 13 :  9780804780605
Editeur : Stanford University Press, 2013
Couverture souple