7/25/2023 0 Comments Walter benjamin illuminations![]() ![]() ![]() The historical and intellectual resonances of this personal choice have become woven into the enigmatic quality of Benjamin's reception.Ī crucial aspect to Walter Benjamin’s intellectual legacy is his role in critical theory, the revision of Marxist theory based at the University of Frankfurt. Expecting to be sent back to Nazi Germany where certain death awaited him, he chose to take a high dose of morphine. In Arendt’s account, ‘the immediate occasion for Benjamin’s suicide was an uncommon stroke of bad luck’. With the publication of his collected work through the joint effort of Theodor Adorno and others in 1955, Passagenwerk (Arcades Project) was first published in English at last in 1999.īenjamin had delayed leaving Paris until the dangers became pressing, and was stopped on the Franco-Spanish border in September of 1940. His scholarly research appeared throughout the 1920s, but slowed during the 1930s, during which time he worked on Passagenwerk. The rise of Nazism prevented him from establishing a university career. His publishing career while alive spanned two decades, yet begun in the 1990s by Harvard University Press, the bulk of his voluminous writings are now published. The longevity and extent of Walter Benjamin’s posthumous fame is due to the great breadth of his intellectual pursuits, which allowed him to circulate through the most important artistic and intellectual groups, such as G Magazine and Bataille's discussion group, the Collège de Sociologie. He made his living through his both journals and newspapers, and only later received a stipend from the Frankfurt School for Passagenwerk during the years of his exile, 1933 - 1940. He often planned to open a bookstore due to his passion for book collecting, but eventually established himself by 1928 as a formidable critic. The historical record of his life and career has been clarified with several recent detailed biographies. He was raised in a well-off quarter of the city and came of age during the Weimar Republic years before becoming a political refugee, fleeing to Paris in 1933. Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) was born in Berlin, Germany, into a ‘wealthy run-of-the-mill assimilated Jewish family’. This section is based upon Marianne Franklin's article on Walter Benjamin (2003), pp 14-16. ![]()
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