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 Benjaminian way, understands figures as constellations , whereby an image of the past juxtaposes them with an image of the present and is thus ...
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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 Benjaminian 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 Fl???neur, the Detective, the Prostitute and the Ragpicker, and then sets them alongside a contemporary account of the same figure: the Fl???neur 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/M???ller 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.
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Add this copy of Constellations of Reading: Walter Benjamin in Figures to cart. $93.32, new condition, Sold by Ria Christie Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Uxbridge, MIDDLESEX, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2008 by Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers.
Edition:
2008, Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers
Add this copy of Constellations of Reading to cart. $94.04, new condition, Sold by Ria Christie Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Uxbridge, MIDDLESEX, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2008 by Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers.
Edition:
2008, Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers
Add this copy of Constellations of Reading: Walter Benjamin in Figures to cart. $117.34, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2008 by Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers.
Edition:
2008, Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers
