Benjamin's -abilities

Samuel Weber; Walter Benjamin

Book

Benjamin's -abilities

Samuel Weber and Walter Benjamin

Language: English

Published/Copyright: 2008

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About this book

A leading theorist on literature and media reveals a new and productive aspect of Benjamin’s thought by focusing on the critical suffix “-ability” that Benjamin so tellingly deploys in his work. The result is an illuminating perspective on Benjamin’s thought by way of his language.

Reviews

Benjamin's -abilities is a landmark work in the study of Walter Benjamin and in all of the many fields in which Benjamin's work has become indispensable. This book marks the culmination of the work of one of the most influential and admired critics writing today, whose work has been profoundly involved in and shaped by an innovative engagement with Benjamin.
-- Kevin McLaughlin, Brown University

Because no single methodology could account for all the textual maneuvers and figurations with which Benjamin saturates his variegated writings, a new book on Benjamin must also offer an entirely new way of seeing and reading-- a tall order. Benjamin's -abilities is just such a book.Sam Weber has long been one of the most significant and original thinkers on the international scene. This book, perhaps Weber's magnum opus, will be of great interest not only to scholars of Benjamin but also to a wide community of readers in the humanities and beyond.
-- Gerhard Richter, University of California, Davis

In this demanding book, Weber analyzes Benjaminian theory and its potential, presenting a close reading of Walter Benjamin at his most energetic and complex...Through Benjamin, Weber illuminates what happens between what is written and what is read and the true impossibility of defining any sort of straight line between those two points.
-- Publishers Weekly

Weber's close readings are illuminating.
-- David Gordon Library Journal

In Benjamin's –abilities, Samuel Weber takes an innovative approach to Walter Benjamin's work. In contrast to the burgeoning secondary literature on Benjamin devoted to broad themes (his "messianism," his "Marxism," etc.), Weber, who has achieved academic prominence with scholarship on the Frankfurt School, psychoanalysis, deconstruction and media culture, opens up a fertile avenue of interpretation by paying close attention to a stylistic idiosyncrasy running through Benjamin's oeuvre...[Weber] deftly navigates this labyrinth of interpretations, exhibiting a keen sense of Benjamin's singularly elusive style of thinking and writing.
-- Ross Benjamin Times Literary Supplement

Not only the best read of 2008 but, with a shelf full of works on Walter Benjamin, the best book on him I've ever read.
-- Rosalind Krauss Artforum

Topics

Philosophy Aesthetics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
PART ONE Benjamin’s -abilities
CHAPTER ONE Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	1
CHAPTER TWO Prehistory: Kant, Hölderlin—et cetera Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	11
CHAPTER THREE Criticizability—Calculability Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	20
CHAPTER FOUR Impart-ability: Language as Medium Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	31
CHAPTER FIVE Translatability I: Following (Nachfolge) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	53
CHAPTER SIX Translatability II: Afterlife Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	79
CHAPTER SEVEN Citability—of Gesture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	95
CHAPTER EIGHT Ability and Style Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	115
CHAPTER NINE An Afterlife of -abilities: Derrida Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	122
PART TWO Legibilities
CHAPTER TEN Genealogy of Modernity: History, Myth, and Allegory in Benjamin’s Origin of the German Mourning Play Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	129
CHAPTER ELEVEN Awakening Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	164
CHAPTER TWELVE Taking Exception to Decision: Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	176
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Violence and Gesture: Agamben Reading Benjamin Reading Kafka Reading Cervantes . . . Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	195
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Song and Glance: Walter Benjamin’s Secret Names (zugewandt—unverwandt) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	211
CHAPTER FIFTEEN “Streets, Squares, Theaters” A City on the Move—Walter Benjamin’s Paris Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	227
CHAPTER SIXTEEN God and the Devil—in Detail Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	240
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Closing the Net “Capitalism as Religion” (Benjamin) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	250
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The Ring as Trauerspiel: Reading Wagner with Benjamin and Derrida Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	281
CHAPTER NINETEEN Reading Benjamin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	297
CHAPTER TWENTY “Seagulls” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	310
APPENDIX Walter Benjamin’s “Seagulls” A Translation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	325
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	327
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	357
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	359

Publishing information

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

eBook published on:

August 10, 2010

eBook ISBN:

9780674033955

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

Main content:

376

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674033955

eBook ISBN: 9780674033955

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General/trade;

Benjamin's -abilities

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About this book

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