Melancholy and Praxis: Retrieving a (more) radical Benjamin (original) (raw)
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Benjamin on melancholy and truth
This essay attempts to discuss the relation of mood to philosophy in the context of Benjamin's early thought. Reviewing Ilit Ferber's Melancholy and Philosophy: Benjamin's Early Reflections on Theatre and Language, I try to show that melancholy, far from merely a psychological-solipsistic-pathological condition as it is generally understood today, is rather to be understood as philosophical attunement and which as such is inseparably connected with profound ethico-political questions concerning responsibility and justice, with work and play and with a possible phenomenological disclosure of the world as a whole. Walter Benjamin's early works are seen, in this context, to be indispensable help to think such questions anew. keywords Walter Benjamin, melancholy, mood Ilit Ferber, Philosophy and Melancholy: Benjamin's Early Reflections on Theatre and Language, Stanford University Press, 2013, 264 pp, $24 . 95 (pbk), ISBN-13: 978-0-8047-8520-4.
Philosophy and Melancholy : Benjamin on Language and Truth
2014
This essay attempts to discuss the relation of mood to philosophy in the context of Benjamin’s early thought. Reviewing Ilit Ferber’s Melancholy and Philosophy: Benjamin’s Early Reflections on Theatre and Language, I try to show that melancholy, far from merely a psychological-solipsistic-pathological condition as it is generally understood today, is rather to be understood as philosophical attunement and which as such is inseparably connected with profound ethico-political questions concerning responsibility and justice, with work and play and with a possible phenomenological disclosure of the world as a whole. Walter Benjamin’s early works are seen, in this context, to be indispensable help to think such questions anew.
Review Essay: Philosophy and Melancholy: Benjamin on Language and Truth
This essay attempts to discuss the relation of mood to philosophy in the context of Benjamin's early thought. Reviewing Ilit Ferber's Melancholy and Philosophy: Benjamin's Early Reflections on Theatre and Language, I try to show that melancholy, far from merely a psychological-solipsistic-pathological condition as it is generally understood today, is rather to be understood as philosophical attunement and which as such is inseparably connected with profound ethico-political questions concerning responsibility and justice, with work and play and with a possible phenomenological disclosure of the world as a whole. Walter Benjamin's early works are seen, in this context, to be indispensable help to think such questions anew. keywords Walter Benjamin, melancholy, mood Ilit Ferber, Philosophy and Melancholy: Benjamin's Early Reflections on Theatre and Language, Stanford University Press, 2013, 264 pp, $24 . 95 (pbk), ISBN-13: 978-0-8047-8520-4.
This essay attempts to discuss the relation of mood to philosophy in the context of Benjamin's early thought. Reviewing Ilit Ferber's Melancholy and Philosophy: Benjamin's Early Reflections on Theatre and Language, I try to show that melancholy, far from merely a psychological-solipsistic-pathological condition as it is generally understood today, is rather to be understood as philosophical attunement and which as such is inseparably connected with profound ethico-political questions concerning responsibility and justice, with work and play and with a possible phenomenological disclosure of the world as a whole. Walter Benjamin's early works are seen, in this context, to be indispensable help to think such questions anew. keywords Walter Benjamin, melancholy, mood Ilit Ferber, Philosophy and Melancholy: Benjamin's Early Reflections on Theatre and Language, Stanford University Press, 2013, 264 pp, $24 . 95 (pbk), ISBN-13: 978-0-8047-8520-4.
Walter Benjamin: Melancholy and Revolution
From a very young age, Walter Benjamin's influences were anarchism, revolutionary pre-romanticism and messianism. His paradigmatic text "The Life of Students" (1915) is from this phase, as well as other texts that reveal his thinking at the same time. Later, in 1924, Benjamin was confronted with dialectical materialism, based on Luckács' work, History and Class Consciousness, under the influence of Asja Lascis. These three streaks referred to here (messianism, dialectical materialism and anarchism) constitute, throughout his work, the fabric that would give rise to his most finished thought, namely that which is expressed in his last text, "On the Concept of History". As we intend to emphasize in this text, the idea of revolution is the most evident line in his last work, taking it as the expression of class struggle and, at the same time, of messianism. Here, we analyse these trends that ran through the philosopher's thought and texts, during the thirties and until his death, in 1940, in the adverse context of fascism.
Melancholia and Destruction: Brushing Walter Benjamin's " Angel of History " Against the Grain
In his famous ninth Thesis “On the Concept of History” (1940), Walter Benjamin introduces the “Angel of History” by referring to Paul Klee’s watercolored drawing “Angelus Novus” (1920). The gaze of this angel has often been associated with Benjamin’s allegedly melancholic yearning for the restoration of a lost and catastrophically crushed past. Challenging mainstream interpretations of this allegory, Giorgio Agamben asked a simple question: what if the ‘Angel of History’ could close his wings and had his will? Against the grain of melancholic messianisms, Agamben invites us to see the “Angel of History” in a different light. Relying on Freud and Lacan, this paper discusses the split image of Benjamin’s “Angel of History” torn between vision and gaze, melancholia and destruction.