Walter Benjamin

An Introduction to His Work and Thought

Uwe Steiner, Michael Winkler

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9780226772226
  9780226772219
• eBook ISBN:
  9780226772318
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosopher Biographies

Seven decades after his death, German Jewish writer, philosopher, and literary critic Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) continues to fascinate and influence. Here Uwe Steiner offers a comprehensive and sophisticated introduction to the oeuvre of this intriguing theorist.

Acknowledged only by a small circle of intellectuals during his lifetime, Benjamin is now a major figure whose work is essential to an understanding of modernity. Steiner traces the development of Benjamin's thought chronologically through his writings on philosophy, literature, history, politics, the media, art, photography, cinema, technology, and theology. Walter Benjamin reveals the essential coherence of its subject's thinking while also analyzing the controversial or puzzling facets of Benjamin's work. That coherence, Steiner contends, can best be appreciated by placing Benjamin in his proper context as a member of the German philosophical tradition and a participant in contemporary intellectual debates.

As Benjamin's writing attracts more and more readers in the English-speaking world, Walter Benjamin will be a valuable guide to this fascinating body of work.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Translator’s Note
• Benjamin’s Works Cited in This Study
• Chapter One: Introduction
• Chapter Two: Early Writings, 1914–18
• Chapter Three: Art Criticism and Politics, 1919–25
• Chapter Four: Journalistic Commitment and Essayistic Work, 1925–33
• Chapter Five: Exile Writings, 1933–39
• Chapter Six: Primal History of Modernism, 1931–40
• Chapter Seven: Posthumous Influence and Stages of Reception
• Chronology
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Index of Names