Walter Benjamin (English)

This course will explore the seminal work of Walter Benjamin and trace the development of his theory from the 1920s through his last writings of 1940. A prolific literary and cultural critic, Benjamin developed most of his theoretical concepts through readings of authors such as Goethe, Hölderlin, Kafka, and Baudelaire. In the first part of the semester, “Benjamin as a reader,” we will discuss the most influential of these texts against the backdrop of their primary sources. In the second part of the term, we will focus on Benjamin’s legacy. To explore the actuality of Benjamin’s media theory, his conception of language and translation as well as his thoughts on violence, we will focus on some of his most prominent readers: Theodor W. Adorno, Paul de Man, Carl Schmitt, and Giorgio Agamben.