TY  - GEN
T1  - Walter Benjamin's other history : of stones, animals, human beings, and angels
T2  - Weimar and now ;
A1  - Hanssen, Beatrice
LA  - English
PP  - Berkeley, Calif.
PB  - University of California Press
YR  - 1998
UL  - https://ebooks.jgu.edu.in/Record/ebsco_acadsubs_ocm44959707
AB  - In this study, Beatrice Hanssen unlocks the philosophical and ethical dimensions of the Trauerspiel study, showing how its thematics persisted well into the later writings of the thirties. For by introducing the materialistic category of natural history in The Origin of German Tragic Drama, Benjamin not only criticized idealistic conceptions of history writing but also expressed an ethico-theological call for another kind of history, one no longer anthropocentric in nature. This profound critique of historical thinking, Hanssen shows, went hand in hand with a radical de-limitation of the human subject, informed by his interest in questions about ethics, the law, and justice. Through an analysis of the seemingly innocuous figures of stones, animals, and angels that are scattered throughout his writings, Hanssen reconstructs the often neglected ethical dimension of his historical thought. In the course of doing so, she not only places Benjamin's work in the context of contemporaries such as Adorno, Cohen, Lukacs, Kafka, Kraus, and Heidegger but also demonstrates the persistence of Benjaminian themes in contemporary philosophy and critical theory.
OP  - 207
CN  - PT2603.E455 H36 1998eb
SN  - 9780520926196
SN  - 0520926196
SN  - 0585184356
SN  - 9780585184357
SN  - 0520208412
SN  - 9780520208414
KW  - Benjamin, Walter, : 1892-1940 : Philosophy.
KW  - Benjamin, Walter, : 1892-1940
KW  - LITERARY CRITICISM : European : German.
KW  - Philosophy
KW  - Sociale filosofie.
KW  - Cultuurfilosofie.
KW  - Tragedies.
ER  -