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Benjamin's -abilities / Samuel Weber, Walter Benjamin.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextPublisher: Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2010]Copyright date: 2008Description: 1 online resource (376 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780674033955
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 193
LOC classification:
  • B3209.B584 ǂb W43 2008eb
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- PART ONE Benjamin’s -abilities -- CHAPTER ONE Introduction -- CHAPTER TWO Prehistory: Kant, Hölderlin—et cetera -- CHAPTER THREE Criticizability—Calculability -- CHAPTER FOUR Impart-ability: Language as Medium -- CHAPTER FIVE Translatability I: Following (Nachfolge) -- CHAPTER SIX Translatability II: Afterlife -- CHAPTER SEVEN Citability—of Gesture -- CHAPTER EIGHT Ability and Style -- CHAPTER NINE An Afterlife of -abilities: Derrida -- PART TWO Legibilities -- CHAPTER TEN Genealogy of Modernity: History, Myth, and Allegory in Benjamin’s Origin of the German Mourning Play -- CHAPTER ELEVEN Awakening -- CHAPTER TWELVE Taking Exception to Decision: Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt -- CHAPTER THIRTEEN Violence and Gesture: Agamben Reading Benjamin Reading Kafka Reading Cervantes . . . -- CHAPTER FOURTEEN Song and Glance: Walter Benjamin’s Secret Names (zugewandt—unverwandt) -- CHAPTER FIFTEEN “Streets, Squares, Theaters” A City on the Move—Walter Benjamin’s Paris -- CHAPTER SIXTEEN God and the Devil—in Detail -- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Closing the Net “Capitalism as Religion” (Benjamin) -- CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The Ring as Trauerspiel: Reading Wagner with Benjamin and Derrida -- CHAPTER NINETEEN Reading Benjamin -- CHAPTER TWENTY “Seagulls” -- APPENDIX Walter Benjamin’s “Seagulls” A Translation -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index
Summary: “There is no world of thought that is not a world of language,” Walter Benjamin remarked, “and one only sees in the world what is preconditioned by language.” In this book, Samuel Weber, a leading theorist on literature and media, reveals a new and productive aspect of Benjamin’s thought by focusing on a little-discussed stylistic trait in his formulation of concepts.Weber’s focus is the critical suffix “-ability” that Benjamin so tellingly deploys in his work. The “-ability” (-barkeit, in German) of concepts and literary forms traverses the whole of Benjamin’s oeuvre, from “impartibility” and “criticizability” through the well-known formulations of “citability,” “translatability,” and, most famously, the “reproducibility” of “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility.” Nouns formed with this suffix, Weber points out, refer to a possibility or potentiality, to a capacity rather than an existing reality. This insight allows for a consistent and enlightening reading of Benjamin’s writings.Weber first situates Benjamin’s engagement with the “-ability” of various concepts in the context of his entire corpus and in relation to the philosophical tradition, from Kant to Derrida. Subsequent chapters deepen the implications of the use of this suffix in a wide variety of contexts, including Benjamin’s Trauerspiel book, his relation to Carl Schmitt, and a reading of Wagner’s Ring. The result is an illuminating perspective on Benjamin’s thought by way of his language—and one of the most penetrating and comprehensive accounts of Benjamin’s work ever written.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780674033955

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- PART ONE Benjamin’s -abilities -- CHAPTER ONE Introduction -- CHAPTER TWO Prehistory: Kant, Hölderlin—et cetera -- CHAPTER THREE Criticizability—Calculability -- CHAPTER FOUR Impart-ability: Language as Medium -- CHAPTER FIVE Translatability I: Following (Nachfolge) -- CHAPTER SIX Translatability II: Afterlife -- CHAPTER SEVEN Citability—of Gesture -- CHAPTER EIGHT Ability and Style -- CHAPTER NINE An Afterlife of -abilities: Derrida -- PART TWO Legibilities -- CHAPTER TEN Genealogy of Modernity: History, Myth, and Allegory in Benjamin’s Origin of the German Mourning Play -- CHAPTER ELEVEN Awakening -- CHAPTER TWELVE Taking Exception to Decision: Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt -- CHAPTER THIRTEEN Violence and Gesture: Agamben Reading Benjamin Reading Kafka Reading Cervantes . . . -- CHAPTER FOURTEEN Song and Glance: Walter Benjamin’s Secret Names (zugewandt—unverwandt) -- CHAPTER FIFTEEN “Streets, Squares, Theaters” A City on the Move—Walter Benjamin’s Paris -- CHAPTER SIXTEEN God and the Devil—in Detail -- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Closing the Net “Capitalism as Religion” (Benjamin) -- CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The Ring as Trauerspiel: Reading Wagner with Benjamin and Derrida -- CHAPTER NINETEEN Reading Benjamin -- CHAPTER TWENTY “Seagulls” -- APPENDIX Walter Benjamin’s “Seagulls” A Translation -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

“There is no world of thought that is not a world of language,” Walter Benjamin remarked, “and one only sees in the world what is preconditioned by language.” In this book, Samuel Weber, a leading theorist on literature and media, reveals a new and productive aspect of Benjamin’s thought by focusing on a little-discussed stylistic trait in his formulation of concepts.Weber’s focus is the critical suffix “-ability” that Benjamin so tellingly deploys in his work. The “-ability” (-barkeit, in German) of concepts and literary forms traverses the whole of Benjamin’s oeuvre, from “impartibility” and “criticizability” through the well-known formulations of “citability,” “translatability,” and, most famously, the “reproducibility” of “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility.” Nouns formed with this suffix, Weber points out, refer to a possibility or potentiality, to a capacity rather than an existing reality. This insight allows for a consistent and enlightening reading of Benjamin’s writings.Weber first situates Benjamin’s engagement with the “-ability” of various concepts in the context of his entire corpus and in relation to the philosophical tradition, from Kant to Derrida. Subsequent chapters deepen the implications of the use of this suffix in a wide variety of contexts, including Benjamin’s Trauerspiel book, his relation to Carl Schmitt, and a reading of Wagner’s Ring. The result is an illuminating perspective on Benjamin’s thought by way of his language—and one of the most penetrating and comprehensive accounts of Benjamin’s work ever written.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Aug 2024)