Talk:Walter Benjamin

Supervisor

The passage on Benjamin's Habilitation thesis formerly read: "When submitted as a Habilitation thesis (a higher degree in the German academic system that, after a PhD, gives legal authority to teach in a university), Benjamin's supervisor Gershom Scholem [Scholem was not Benjamin's thesis supervisor!] claimed it was unreadable and refused to award the degree, thus Benjamin was never allowed to teach in a university again." but I have deleted the very questionable reference to Scholem as thesis supervisor, pending further information. Pinkville 19:01, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

suicide

Why does the article state "alleged suicide"? I've read many accounts of Benjamin's life and none of them ever stated that it might have been anything else. 87.69.85.77 06:43, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

In 1984 Juan Goytisolo (“El Crimen fue en Port Bou”, El Pais, 5 August ) advanced a hypothesis that WB was murdered by Gestapo. Some English articles a couple of years ago insinuated that Stalin's NKVD was somehow enmeshed too, and that Arthur Koestler had some role to play. I suppose close reading of Lisa Fittko's books might help to either advance or lay these theories to rest. --Feldmarshmellon 21:32, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Working over the article and adding some material about the Arcades Project [which merits its own entry) I edited the bit about his death/suicide somewhat. The wording "alleged suicide" seems unhappy, since it might easily give the idea he died from accidental causes, which is very unlikely. He was certainly aware the Nazis wanted to kill him. i kept the line that "the circumstances of his death are unclear" and stated the case for that it was suicide and that they were halted primarily to get Benjamin. Strausszek September 4, 2006

I added a few clauses to the end of the Biography section making it clearer that suspicions that Benjamin didn't commit suicide have gathered steam in the last several years, and also a link to the section discussing his death.--BlackAndy 01:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems appropriate to add Benjamin's 25/9/40 letter to Henny Gurland and Adorno: "Dans une situation sans issue, je n'ai d'autre choix que d'en finir. C'est dans un petit village dans les Pyrenees ou personne ne me connait ma vie va s'achever." Rather clear in meaning, and referenced (p342 of the Harvard edition of the Benjamin-Adorno letters), but it subverts much of the Life and Death material of the article. No bad thing, as I think the speculative material is conspiratorial romanticism (seeking to institute a thread of meaning in actions by Dark Forces). AllyD (talk) 09:41, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Huh?

The second sentence of this paragraph is a mess:

Moreover, even a quick read of Benjamin makes it clear that (like Adorno) he was antagonistic of the idea that writing should have an denotative relation to what it is overtly about. As such, he write himself into a modernist in which the philosophical merges with the litterary: through logical argumentation philosophical reasoning cannot account for all experience, especially those which concern self-representation through artistic medium.

I can't correct it myself because I have no clue as to the sentence's intended meaning. Thanks! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.186.59.178 (talk) 20:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC).

Also, please note that media is the correct plural form of medium. Mediums means more than one fortune teller. I've corrected this throughout the article.

Task of the Translator

The paragraph from "Criticism" that deals with Benjamin's translation essay is pretty straightforwardly wrong:

"His concerns regarding style are exemplified in his essay The Task of the Translator, in which he argues that any literary translation -- by definition -- comunicates misreadings, and that a translation always fights with the original text because the original cannot be understood fully in a language other than that in which it was written; this latter point relates to the work of Jacques Derrida."

I don't know if the author was reading the _Illuminations_ translation or what, but Benjamin's point is not that the original text in its original language maintains some originary relation to its content, but rather that translation, a deformation like many of Benjamin's favorite objects of criticism, illuminates aspects of the work unseen in its original form. The text, cut off from the original and with a life of its own, is the ruin of the original, a state that is the precondition for its actual working into Benjamin's major philosophical topos, the constellation. I edited the paragraph, but it still needs reworking, as my edits are academic prose and need streamlining.

I also deleted the reference to Derrida in that sentence, as I think it's more confusing than is worthwhile: certainly Derrida's work has numerous affinities with Benjamin's, but their points are different enough that I think it's more confusing than productive to reference Derrida there. Perhaps such a sentence belongs in the Legacies section. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 140.180.137.29 (talk) 16:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC).

Trauerspiel section

The section on Benjamin's Trauerspiel book needs significant rewriting. Firstly, the extensive excursus on Jewish mysticism should take a back seat to the actual content of the book (where Jewish mysticism is never mentioned). Secondly, the book's major theoretical contribution is not merely to praise allegory over and against symbolism, and then to say that Baroque allegory is blocked. Instead, the Trauerspiel makes history perceptible. Will try to edit accordingly.

The whole article recapitulates Hannah Arendt's New Yorker article on Benjamin, where Jewish mysticism is made to seem the dominant force in Benjamin's work. There has been thirty years of Benjamin scholarship since then elucidating other, far more important aspects of his work (his theory of history, play, death, etc): the article should reflect that.

HalIncandenza 16:41, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Biography

i put a "copy-editing" template in this section, as the whole of it is pretty awful and i don't know much about the subject. there are..

run-on sentences: "In 1902 Benjamin was enrolled at Kaiser Friedrich School, in Berlin Charlottenburg, and finished high school ten years later, then moved to the University, where he studied literature and psychology", "They separated in 1921, next year he moved to the University of Heidelberg where he tried an academic career"

unqualified allusions: "adhering to the Freie Studentenschaft and collaborating in the magazine of this republican movement"

changing tense: "In 1912 Benjamin travels to Italy", "In 1927 Benjamin started his monumental and unfinished The Arcades Project"

and there are at least a few glaring ambiguities or contradictions: "In 1924 ... Benjamin spent several months in the Italian island of Capri ... where he first met Asja Lacis" compared to "In 1929, he met Bertold Brecht and Asja Lacis, then his assistant, in Berlin"; "[Kellner and Benjamin] separated in 1921, next year he moved to the University of Heidelberg where he tried an academic career." compared to "Benjamin divorced only in 1930." -Hjijch 04:07, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

the section is better now, but the 8th paragraph ("In 1927 Benjamin started his monumental and unfinished The Arcades Project...") is still pretty unclear about "meeting" Scholem and Lacis. the wording makes it seem like it could have been the first time he met them - it doesn't give any context or motivation, and with Lacis even any sense of significance. Hjijch 02:35, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, the accompanying photograph is not of Walter Benjamin

Pronunciation

Seems like there should be a note on how to pronounce "Benjamin," but I'm hopeless with the international phonetic alphabet that Wikipedia favors ... anyone smarter than I care to take that on? --Andersonblog 12:56, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Burial

It states "he was buried in a consecrated section of a Roman Catholic cemetery, thus meaning that his death was not reported a suicide." While the same belief holds in Judaism re: suicide, why was he buried in a non-Jewish cemetery in a section apparently reserved for Roman Catholics? I think that requires citation. MSJapan (talk) 04:11, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Dora Sofie Pollack/Dora Kellner

In the "Life" section, it is stated "In 1917 he married Dora Sophie Pollack." Then, later, there is the assertion that "Walter Benjamin and Dora Kellner separated in 1921." Were the two Doras the same person?Lestrade (talk) 19:53, 12 February 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

According to Momme Brodersen's Walter Benjamin: A Biography, her birth name is Dora Sophie Kellner and she was married to a Max Pollak before Benjamin, so Dora Sophie Pollak. Dora did take Benjamin's name during their marriage--they divorced in 1929. The biography's index lists her primarily as Dora Sophie Kellner, with the "Benjamin" and "Pollak" versions of her name pointing to that (as in "see Kellner, Dora Sophie"). Perhaps we should do the same, or at the very least correct the spelling of "Pollak". freshacconcispeaktome 20:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Forbidden thoughts

Against my will, it started to occur to me that Walter Benjamin might have been a bit of a fraud, possibly approaching being a crank. He might have appropriated Hegel's technique of arcane obfuscation. The Frankfurt University may have correctly seen through his ploy when it rejected Origin of German Tragic Drama. Can we take seriously auratic perception, Jewish mysticism and a history of the Paris outdoor arcades? Susan Sontag gave it her best New York Intellectual effort in an attempt to justify Benjamin's confused style. She would have been intimately familiar with many other such creations. The 9th thesis from Theses on the Philosophy of History is extremely contrived. Klee's crude artwork is comic when it is used as an illustration of Benjamin's strange concept of the Angel of History. I want to believe that Walter Benjamin produced valuable writings. Have there been any skeptics who don't agree with the conventional or Marxist evaluation of this unfortunate man's body of work?Lestrade (talk) 00:21, 13 February 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

Jargon

I killed some of the superfluous language from the introduction, fixed the translation of the artwork essay, and got rid of what, unsourced, reads like interpretation. The last sentence of the intro still doesn't make sense to me--what is "auratic perception?" HalIncandenza (talk) 02:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Walter Benjamin Conference in Germany

Does anybody know about a Walter Benjamin conference/exhibit that is currently happening in Germany? I believe I saw an ad for this in the New York Review of Books but have not been able to find info. Also thought it was in the city called Marburg or Manberg... If there is a current event happening it may be worth adding to the article. Any help appreciated. yokyle (talk) 17:14, 15 June 2008 (UTC)