Constellations of Reading - Walter Benjamin in Figures of Actuality (Paperback, New edition)

How to read Walter Benjamin today? This book argues that the proper way is through an approach which recognizes and respects his own peculiar theorization of the act of reading and the politics of interpretation that this entails. The approach must be figural, that is, focused on images, and driven by the notion of actualization. Figural reading, in the very sui generis Benjarninian way, understands figures as constellations, whereby an image of the past juxtaposes them with an image of the present and is thus actualized. To apply this method to Benjamin's own work means first to identify some figures. The book singles out the Flaneur, the Detective, the Prostitute and the Ragpicker, and then sets them alongside a contemporary account of the same figure: the Flaneur in Juan Goytisolo's Landscapes after the Battle (1982), the Detective in Paul Auster's New York Trilogy (1987), the Prostitute in Dacia Maraini's Dialogue between a Prostitute and her Client (1973), and the Ragpicker in Mudrooroo's The Mudrooroo/Muller Project (1993). The book thereby, on the one hand, analyses the politics of reading Benjamin today and, on the other, sets his work against a variety of contemporary aesthetics and politics of interpretation.

General

Imprint:	Verlag Peter Lang
Country of origin:	Switzerland
Series:	Cultural History & Literary Imagination, 13
Release date:	December 2008
First published:	2009
Authors:	Carlo Salzani
Dimensions:	220 x 150 x 23mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	392
Edition:	New edition
ISBN-13:	978-3-03-911860-1
Categories:	Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > General Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Aesthetics Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Western philosophy > Modern Western philosophy, c 1600 to the present > Western philosophy, from c 1900 - > Phenomenology & Existentialism Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Aesthetics Books > Philosophy > Western philosophy > Modern Western philosophy, c 1600 to the present > Western philosophy, from c 1900 - > Phenomenology & Existentialism
LSN:	3-03-911860-9
Barcode:	9783039118601

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