From: Rakesh Bhandari (rakeshb@stanford.edu)
Date: Tue Mar 18 2003 - 15:36:53 EST
Walter Benjamin: Critical Constellations Graeme Gilloch Hardcover, February 2001 Table of Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction: Benjamin as a Key Contemporary Thinker 1 1 Immanent Criticism and Exemplary Critique 27 2 Allegory and Melancholy 57 3 From Cityscape to Dreamworld 88 4 Paris and the Arcades 113 5 Culture and Critique in Crisis 140 6 Benjamin On-Air, Benjamin on Aura 163 7 Love at Last Sight 198 Conclusion: Towards a Contemporary Constellation 234 Notes 249 Bibliography 289 Index 298 Product Details: ISBN: 0745610072 Format: Hardcover, 208pp Pub. Date: February 2001 Publisher: Polity Press ABOUT THE BOOK From the Publisher The works of Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) are widely acclaimed as among the most original and provocative writings of 20th-century critical thought, and have become required reading for scholars and students in a range of academic disciplines. This book provides a lucid introduction to Benjamin's oeuvre through a close and sensitive reading not only of his major studies, but also of some his less familiar essays and fragments. Gilloch offers an original interpretation of, and fresh insights into, the continuities between Benjamin's always demanding and seemingly disparate texts. This book should be of particular interest to students and scholars in social theory, literary theory, cultural and media studies and urban studies who are seeking a sophisticated yet readable overview of Benjamin's work. It will also prove rewarding reading for those already well-versed in Benjaminian thought. From The Critics Library Journal Gilloch (Univ. of Salford, UK) offers an intellectual biography of the German aesthetician who worked at critiquing the diverse fields of literature, theater, photography, and children's radio. Benjamin (1892-1940) began his theorizing with the recognition that Romanticism simply extended the work of art under critical examination, while he wanted to bring that same art to a greater plane of realization. Criticism, in Benjamin's view, was "a mode of ceaseless becoming." From this point, Benjamin developed a Marxist dialectic, in which art carried both a material and a truth content. Still later, he moved beyond Marxism, undertaking an examination of contemporary theater as a new formulation that brought actor and audience together in understanding. Gilloch follows this development of the thinker closely, quoting cogently from published texts and letters. His own conclusion offers a Benjamin who was aware of the consumerism that touches modern aestheticism and yet pushed beyond simplified analysis of text or image to the relationships these products have with society. While this is a fine text to accompany a firsthand reading of Benjamin, such reading is necessary to understand the thinker critiqued here. Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley P.L., CA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
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