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El presente artículo tiene como objetivo principal relacionar las ideas de Walter Benjamin y de Hannah Arendt respecto de la exacerbación del valor de la vida nuda como elemento central de la Modernidad. Mientras Benjamin habla del dogma de la sacralidad de la vida, la describe Arendt en términos de bien supremo. En ambos casos se hace referencia a un cierto estatus de protección de la vida, que se revela a poco andar como un fenómeno que tiende, más bien, a ejercer una dominación esencial sobre lo vital.

O trabalho visa apresentar o texto Experiência e Pobreza, do filósofo-ensaista alemão Walter Benjamin, que está contido em sua obra O Anjo da História. Benjamin visa discutir o valor da experiência na contemporaneidade atravessada pela modernidade que visou destruir a oralidade em prol de uma cultura tradicional e capitalista. A ideia central do ensaio é estabelecer um contraste com a desvalorização da experiência, própria do tempo do autor.

O propósito deste trabalho consiste na reconstrução dos conceitos de constelação, parataxe e ensaio no pensamento de Theodor Adorno, no intuito de aproximá-los por afinidade, porém, demonstrando a maneira que cada qual expressa, dentro de suas especificidades, a insistência de Adorno em um modelo de pensamento no qual o não idêntico: 1) resiste à subsunção conceitual, ao se dispor em uma configuração constelatória; 2) não sucumbe a justaposições subordinadas próprias da linguagem meramente comunicativa; e 3) encontra sua melhor expressão filosófica na forma ensaio. Para tanto, tomar-se-á como ponto de partida o rearranjo da categoria de constelação como herança do pensamento de Walter Benjamin, para, em seguida, apresentar a ampliação dessa categoria no pensamento de Adorno, relacionando-a tanto à concepção de parataxe como à acepção da forma ensaio, mas visando a entender essas categorias enquanto modo de se pensar filosoficamente, com vistas à elucidação do lugar do não idêntico no âmbito do pensamento dialético.

Referência do artigo comentado: FRANÇA, Fabiano Leite. Constelação, parataxe e ensaio: os arcanos do pensamento da não identidade. Trans/Form/Ação: Revista de Filosofia da Unesp. v. 45, n. 4, p. 33-54, 2022.

Referência do artigo comentado: FRANÇA, Fabiano Leite. Constelação, parataxe e ensaio: os arcanos do pensamento da não identidade. Trans/form/ação: revista de Filosofia da Unesp, v. 45, n. 4, p. 33-54, 2022.

This article investigates the relationship between secular politics and theology in Walter Benjamin’s The Origin of German Trauerspiel. It explores that question by starting from how the Weimar legal theory conceived the relationship between modern, secular law and the theological tradition. Focusing on Carl Schmitt’s concept of secularization, it investigates the analogy model in term of which the legal discourse understood the named relationship as well as its political consequences. The article suggests that Benjamin’s theory of the Trauerspiel elaborates a different, dialectical model which deploys, on the contrary, the crisis of any analogy between theology and modern politics.

In this article, I argue that atheism is different from secularism. Secularism is based on a faux elimination of theology which effectively preserves that theology in the guise of overcoming it. To achieve atheism (a term that I draw from the work of Maria Aristodemou), I argue that one needs to directly confront the theological element in order to come to terms with it. In this essay I look at how two political theological thinkers, Nietzsche and Benjamin, accomplish this. Nie-tzsche accomplishes atheism via his thesis of the “death of God,” a death that is not always literal but which creates a space for human life that is not determined by theological terms. Benjamin does the same thing with his idea that God vacates divine powers of judgment and determination in order to allow an atheistic space where human beings can engage in their own self-determination (even as the notion of God remains to challenge any would be human spokespersons for that role). I ultimately argue that atheism and anarchism are related concepts based not just on a rejection of certain forms of theology and all forms of archism, but also in terms of the way they allow a positive and undetermined human response.

Il flâneur rappresenta una fisionomia metropolitana che è intrinsecamente connessa alla dimensione urbana. La nozione nasce dai lavori di Baudelaire, che ha reso nota tale figura. Per Benjamin, il prototipo di flâneur è Hessel: i due amici cominciano insieme la stesura dei Passagenwerk nel 1927, e da Hessel, Benjamin impara l'arte di andare a passeggio. La prima città di cui Benjamin fornisce immagini dialettiche è Napoli, che visita varie volte dal 1924. A Capri conosce Asja Lacis che consiglia a Benjamin lo studio di Marx. durante il soggiorno caprese egli è impegnato a scrivere Premessa gnoseologica al Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels. Questo articolo si occupa del metodo di Benjamin e in generale del concetto di flâneur. la prospettiva fisiognomica, il procedimento micrologico e il metodo archeologico vengono applicati alla dimensione urbana - un teatro di comportamenti, in cui è possibile riscontrare le dinamiche del proprio tempo. Il flâneur occupa la soglia e scova gli interstizi urbani. Nella città, il tempo non scorre ma si sedimenta; antico e moderno coesistono; il calcolo prevale sulla sentimentalità. Altri autori come l'architetto Kracauer e il musicologo Adorno, sono considerati flâneur e riflettono su varie città come Parigi, Mosca e Berlino. in generale la correlazione è tra aspetti comportamentali e forme urbane; l'architettura testimonia il ritmo di una comunità e il gioco di forze della storia; l'idea di corrispenza di Baudelaire è preferita alla relazione deterministica. Benjamin si oppone all'idea lineare e progressiva della temporalità: attraversale la città significa prendere contatto con l'Ur; i suoi passi sull'asfalto risveglano una sorprendente risonanza e la strada diventa un labirinto. Le polarità del reale vengono trasformate in immagini dialettiche, che montate inseime generano lo choc del risveglio. L'inutilità del passeggiare senza una meta diventa un atteggiamento filosofico in contrapposizione alla società capitalistica. Si vedrà come il metodo di Benjamin può essere trasposto nella contemporaneità e quanto di ciò che dice sia ancora valido per Napoli. il riferimento è agli stereotipi che l'industria culturale e cinematografica promuove sulla città. Benjamin rappresenta un anti-turista. Se il turista guarda una vetrina, Benjamin vede la fantasmagoria della merce. Se il turista raccoglie cartoline tipiche, egli produce immagini dialettiche. le rovine di antiche città, egli afferma, sono trasformate in feticci dall'industria turistica.

Berlin as a romantic city of ghosts (Hoff mann) and metropolis of uncanny childhood experiences (Benjamin) appears as the prophetic mirror of Hitler’s legacy from exile to the Shoah.

En esta recensión se comenta el libro Por qué el derecho es violento (y debería reconocerlo) de Christoph Menke. El autor bebe de la filosofía hegeliana y de autores como Walter Benjamin o Michel Foucault para mostrar como la conexión entre el derecho y la violencia es persistente y como el derecho no es la negación de la violencia. Menke propone finalmente un derecho autorreflexivo para limitar la inevitable violencia que habita en el devenir del derecho en nuestras sociedades.

The essay acknowledges, through an aesthetic perspective, the relationship between training and therapy, meant as a play or work on oneself. Through the analysis of Harun Farocki’s Serious Games, which examines this relation with reference to two virtual devices of the US Army, the essay shows how the training provides an early mastery of the traumas, while the therapeutic work offers a postponed learning. In fact, they are both based, on the one hand, on the individual ability to distance oneself from the body shock par excellence, death. On the other hand, they aim to integrate the image with a sensorimotor interaction that ultimately creates a positive feedback. The innervation of body space and image space provides the Spielraum that Benjamin perceives as an immersive space of the play, where the repetition of the experience allows the incorporation of a habit. The military context is an emblematic example of these relationships, by managing the precarious balance between the domination of the space and the freedom of movement.

Resumen Para Freud la relación entre violencia y ley parece indisociable, en tanto la instauración de esta última depende de una violencia inaugural (el asesinato del padre), la que en lugar de quedar limitada a este momento inicial continúa activa a través de los propios mecanismos psíquicos que encarnan la función de la ley, de manera tal que la ley se encuentra coludida permanentemente con la misma violencia que intenta regular. Pensamos que este dilema es equivalente al delimitado por Benjamin en Para una crítica de la violencia, ensayo en el que este propone, por medio de la figura de la violencia divina o pura, una vía para interrumpir el papel fundante y conservador de la ley que le cabría a la violencia mítica. Se propone que la interpretación de Lacan sobre el acto de Antígona como trasgresión de la Átē, resulta afín a la idea de Benjamin sobre la superación del compromiso entre violencia mítica y ley que adjudica al acontecimiento de la violencia pura, replicando una crítica a la violencia, esta vez dentro de los márgenes teóricos del psicoanálisis. En ambos casos resulta posible situar un más allá del compromiso entre violencia y ley, el cual permite pensar una refundación de los límites simbólicos que dan soporte a la vida en comunidad.

L’article se propose de remettre en discussion le rapport de ressemblance entre Paul Celan et Walter Benjamin et de formuler quelques assertions concernant la valeur interculturelle de leurs écrits français. La discussion sur les textes français de Benjamin et de Celan se propose de préciser leurs contenus et conditions de parution tandis que le rôle qu’ils ont joué dans le processus de la réception européenne des deux auteurs ; d’analyser les « physionomies interculturelles » des deux auteurs à partir des positions enregistrées par rapport aux langues française et allemande, formulant toutefois une justification contextuelle et biographique concernant le choix du français comme langue de l’écriture ; d’analyser et d’interpréter le rapport entre le contenu (l’expérience culturelle allemande) et la forme (la langue française) de ces écrits.

Signs between old Bedouins. An epistolary analysis of Benjamin. Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) and Gerhard Scholem (1897-1982) were bound by a deep friendship, intertwined since 1912 and continuing until 1940, when Benjamin committed suicide in Port Bou, terrified of being handed over to the Nazis. The two intellectuals, both of Jewish faith, made different existential choices: Benjamin remained in Germany until the racial persecution of the Nazi regime forced him to roam around Europe, while Scholem settled in Palestine and worked at the University of Jerusalem, where he could devote himself to the study of Jewish mysticism. The essay concerns the correspondence between the two scholars, particularly on Zionism, the proximity of Benjamin to the communism, the relationship with the scholars of the Institute of Social Research directed by Max Horkheimer and with Bertolt Brecht. On the background of the correspondence is clearly visible Benjamin’s attempt not to give up his intellectual research and friendship, even though he was forced to look for marginal and peripheral places where he could survive in a Europe by then handed over to Hitler's wars.

The article intends to retrace, from a historical-philological point of view, the main steps of Walter Benjamin’s unfinished research and works, conducted during his later years, dedicated to Charles Baudelaire. Setting Benjamin’s translation of the Ta-bleaux parisiens as the first result of his interest for the poet, the text delves into the composition process of The Arcades Project, from which the idea of a book on Baudelaire then takes shape. The article examines the crucial stages of this second project’s development through the correspondence between Benjamin and Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer especially: from the 1935 exposé for The Arcades Project to The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire, to the 1939 essay On some Motifs in Baudelaire. The focus is set, in particular, on the dialectical-constructive method that guides Benjamin in the composition both of the Passagen-Werk as of the Baudelaire-Buch and the essays. Finally, the article looks back over the transmission history of the project on Baudelaire, intimately bound to the one of the Passagenarbeit: the vicissitudes and findings of various manuscripts, of which the complete restitution of the Kritische Gesamtausgabe is soon expected. Therefore, the peculiar relationship between philology and philosophy of Benjamin’s experimental method is then examined further in depth; the configuration of the research object’s monadic structure according to a historical perspective, albeit in the context of a work that remained unfinished.

Berlin as a romantic city of ghosts (Hoffmann) and metropolis of uncanny childhood experiences (Benjamin) appears as the prophetic mirror of Hitler's legacy from exile to the Shoah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What does it really mean to study the law? Who are law students and what do they do? This paper is aimed at answering to these questions starting from Levinsas essay on the Torah study and on the students’ role in the Jewish cultural tradition and Jewish educational practices. By comparing Levinas’ work with Kafka and Benjamin’s works, this paper will define the study of law as conversion (Umkehr) – that is also a reversal – of the law itself, a practice which separates law from its violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Il contributo prende le mosse dalle reazioni di scrittori e intellettuali, tra seconda metà dell'Ottocento e inizi del Novecento, al sogno architettonico di una utopica «sincerità» (culturale, etica, psicologica e in ultima istanza sociale e politica) raggiunta attraverso l'uso delle costruzioni in vetro. In continuità con il volume Critica della trasparenza (2016), il contributo mette in luce come la letteratura europea si sia misurata in termini ora entusiastici ora polemici con l'idea di un portato veritativo e socialmente rivoluzionario connesso alla trasparenza architettonica.

Resumo O presente trabalho objetiva estabelecer um diálogo entre as concepções de brinquedo expressas por Benjamin, Brougère e Vigotski. Para tanto, analisamos os textos “História cultural do brinquedo” e “Brinquedos e jogos”, de Benjamin; “O brinquedo, objeto extremo” e “O papel do brinquedo na impregnação cultural da criança”, de Brougère; e “O papel do brinquedo no desenvolvimento” e “O desenvolvimento do simbolismo no brinquedo”, de Vigotski. Os autores partilham da concepção de que o brinquedo é um objeto cultural, cujo contato permite ao sujeito aprender a própria cultura. Identificamos as convergências e divergências entre essas obras, evidenciando os significados referentes ao conceito de brinquedo, sem desconsiderar suas construções teóricas.

L’articolo intende proporre una lettura de Gli anelli di Saturno di W. G. Sebald come testo focalizzato attorno a un viaggio di tipo iniziatico. Nel testo sembrano infatti essere presenti una serie di graduali trasformazioni che portano il narratore-viaggiatore degli Anelli verso un progressivo avvicinamento a una forma di conoscenza più profonda del reale. Il percorso iniziatico prevede che il soggetto si affranchi dal peso del Tempo ed entri in una dimensione post-esistenziale e attinga una visione distaccata del mondo, sempre più orientata alla riconquista di un sapere basato sulla legge suprema dell’Analogia, tema chiave del libro. L’Analogia rappresenta la forma regolatrice del cosmo e il principio in grado di opporsi alla Distruzione attraverso una ricomposizione della vita che ne unisca per corrispondenza le componenti umane, naturali e animali.

Traduzione di: Taccetta, Natalia, “Signatura e historia: una aproximación al encuentro Benjamin-Agamben”, Metahistorias, 2011. Lo scopo dell’articolo consiste nell’analisi della relazione Benjamin/Agamben nella definizione dell’avanguardia come fenomeno non solo estetico ma anche conoscitivo.

Images of Thought: the Leaf, the Life and the Arcades. For a Research of the Generative Principle of Imaginary. The main aspect of our imaginary is the variety and the quantity of phenomenon that characterizes our everyday life. This fragmentary scenario makes it tough to consider every element as a part of a unique imaginary. However, we can take into account some classic works in order to consider different phenomenon manifestations of a unique generative principle. The aim of this paper is to examine the works of Goethe, Simmel, and Benjamin, considering that they have in common the capacity to assemble multitude in a single image of thought. In fact, although they start from different field of research, they examine the empirical world as an expression of a unique generative principle. Therefore, for Goethe leaf is the “original form” of the botanical world. While, in Simmel’s work life is the “central idea” of the modern daily life. Finally, Parisian Arcades are for Benjamin the origin of the modern capitalism. Thus, the leaf, the life, and the Arcades, are meaningful examples to focus our attention on the opportunity to discover a synthetic image of our imaginary.

RESUMO O problema das massas é uma questão moderna crucial e Walter Benjamin não cessou de abordá-lo. O fenômeno das massas surge com as grandes metrópoles e segue uma dinâmica concentracionária inteiramente nova. Além disso, a questão das massas é também correlata da relação a si que as técnicas modernas na era da reprodutibilidade técnica permitem. É o que ressalta Benjamin no fim de seu texto “A obra de arte na era da reprodutibilidade técnica” a partir da questão da propaganda. A imagem filmada estrutura de modo inédito a percepção das massas que podem, pela primeira, vez se apreender como um todo em seus movimentos, gestos e comportamentos. A massa se torna um “material” a ser “trabalhado”, a ser “reproduzido”, segundo a visão fascista, ou a ser “transformado”, segundo a visão revolucionária. Este artigo propõe investigar os conceitos benjaminianos desenvolvidos nos anos 1930 para se pensar a arte tendo em vista esse plano de fundo histórico determinante para as suas teorizações.

RESUMO Este artigo constrói uma afinidade entre a noção benjaminiana de “semelhança não sensível” e o “trabalho da semelhança” do qual fala Ricœur a propósito da metáfora. Para isso pressupõe uma referência comum: o princípio kantiano das afinidades, que corresponde ao poder de produzir e de perceber ao mesmo tempo a diferença na identidade e a identidade na diferença, constituindo o modo de funcionamento do esquematismo em geral. Seguindo caminhos diferentes, Benjamin e Ricœur tematizam essa tensão comparativa que caracteriza a imaginação, examinando sua ação na construção poética e na reflexividade que lhe é inerente.

In quest’articolo viene analizzato il concetto di barocco presentato da Carlo Emilio Gadda nella nota che accompagna il testo del suo ultimo romanzo: La cognizione del dolore. Si mette in relazione la peculiare posizione teorica dell’autore col pensiero di Eugenio d’Ors e di Walter Benjamin, con lo scopo di dimostrare l’originalità dell’approccio gaddiano al barocco.In this paper I shall analyze the concept of Baroque as it is defined by Carlo Emilio Gadda in the note which goes with his last novel: Acquainted with Grief. Our aim is to demonstrate the originality of Gadda’s approach to the Baroque connecting his peculiar theoretical opinion with the thought of Eugenio d’Ors and Walter Benjamin.

Este artículo plantea el problema de la multiplicación de comentarios en torno a la obra de Benjamin como una situación que ha de incidir en las metodologías de su interpretación. A través del tratamiento de dos términos precisos –teología y mesianismo– se argumenta la importancia de una crítica que tome en cuenta el contexto de recepción sociolingüístico del intérprete. Se busca así contribuir a generar metodologías que puedan abrir paso a tratamientos que propongan una recepción crítica renovada.

The avant-garde talks. The role of Gianni Sassi between the Sixties and the Eighties. Gianni Sassi is an eclectic intellectual who showed his communicative strenght in an interdisciplinary way, leaving his mark on advertising world, on music, on poetry and art generally with his creative work, going beyond rigid sectionalization of human knowledge. He embodied the innovation and renovation spirit of his time treasuring the neo-avant-garde lesson of Futurism, Fluxus, Dada, Pop Art but reworking them in his own original style, he also revealed a pioneering entrepreneurship in his way to interpret the relationship between art and marketing, like Benjamin did, and in his talent for creating fertile encounter and clash between different opinions, ideas and people too. His very effective images spread cultural proposals which were able to satisfy the alternativism needs of the highly active audience of that time, they were open to different interpretations and they had the power to stimulate cultural awareness by freeing from prejudices and platitudes which cage free thought. Today we miss figures like Gianni Sassi and those artists and intellectuals who expressed, in several ways, their keen desire to create their own work, their own sound, their own future, their own ideas and point of view themselves. In these days of cultural sectionalization, it should be essential to revalue these models and this period characterized by a spontaneous and strong bond between society, politics and culture

In the late, roaring Twenties and the early, uncanny Thirties of the 20th Century, German philosopher and essayist Walter Benjamin went through a considerable series of experiments with drugs. Not only the renowned ones on hashish (he promised a ‘very important book’ on that matter), but also opium, opioids and mescaline. Each experiment, except those with opium (which he took in Ibiza with his French friend, Jean Selz), were surveyed by specialist physicians, who documented the results together with the Versuchsperson, the experiment subject. An on-the-field study on the potential of intoxication, these writings are filled with keywords such as ‘ornament’, ‘play’, ‘series’, which the reader can find in all his contemporary production. His notes on those experiences are a true milestone to penetrate both his understanding of the ‘altered perception’ and the social role of legal opioids in democratic Germany first, and in Nazi Germany later on. Benjamin’s remarks open new perspectives on the function of intoxicated alienation in the bourgeois society from Baudelaire on. Moreover, he offers truly insightful comments on the reasons why the building of comfort-zones for addicted individuals and groups have ‘economic’ roots in the psychological aftermath of the “struggle for existence”.

The paper will focus on the reactions of writers and intellectuals, between the second half of the 19th C. and the first part of the 20th C., to the architectural dream of a utopian "sincerity" (cultural, ethical, psychological and ultimately social and political) potentially achieved through the use of glass constructions. Following the theoretical path traced in the essay Critica della trasparenza (2016), the paper will provide some examples of how European literature has reacted to the innovative realizations of transparent buildings, sometimes enthusiastically, sometimes with skepticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Enthymema is the property of Enthymema, International Journal of Literary Criticism, Literary Theory & Philosophy of Literature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper focuses on the problematic relationship between method and object in Walter Benjamin’s research. In order to do this, first we will try to clarify the dialectical structure of the notion of “critique”, which plays a key role in his method of historical knowledge. Benjamin’s peculiar appropriation of Goethean “dialectics” will allow us then to show the structural affinity that exists between the medium of representation and the historical object represented, paying special attention to the particular case of the object called “Baroque”.

Seeking Saul may be a key to understand the emergence of the people who later will be called Israel. Biblical narratives in Samuel Books hide ancient traditions that may refer to saulide kingdom. To rescue these traditions is the purpose of this paper. The text under consideration is 1 Samuel 9-(12)14. In it are three stories that are part of memory which refers to the beginning of saulide kingdom: the story of the lost donkeys, the war against the Ammonites and the battle against the Philistines. These memories have been obscured by subsequent redactions. Three layers are visible in the narrative: a pre-Deuteronomistic (Dtr), a Deuteronomistic, VII B.C.E., and an exilic and post-exilic. Although archeology has not found evidence of literary activity in Israel before VIII Century B.C.., this paper proposes that the first draft took place during the reign of the omridas in Samaria (884-842). Old memories are related to town’s names: Shalishah, Shaalim and Suf, which only appear in the text in question, and whose exact location has been lost, Bethel and Michmash. Besides these, Gibeah of Saul, Gibeah of Benjamin, Gibeah of Elohim, Geba and Gibeon. All are in the territory of Benjamin and all have the same root gb '(mountain), which is a sign to identify the saulide kingdom.

In this paper I will address some theories of Roman Ingarden and Walter Benjamin in the light of the new reproductive technologies for streaming music. As to Ingarden's theory I argue that, in the case I am bringing into investigation, streaming music experience can bring new light on the problem of the identity of the musical work by creating a continuum in a sequence of performances, and such continuum may account for a sort of ‘fluid’ cross-identity of the music piece variously performed. I also argue that the lack of ‘aura’, in this case, does not devalue the music piece and nevertheless allows for a notable aesthetic fruition.

The essay shows a comparison between the last philosophy of Walter Benjamin and the work of Anselm Kiefer. On the background of the dramatic relationship between past, memory and identity, which obviously assumes different forms in Benjamin and Kiefer, the comparison concern in particular the Kiefer’s work, Der Engel der Geschichte. Mohn und Gedächtnis (The Angel of History: Poppy and Memory, lead, glass, wires and poppies, 1989 The Israel Museum, Jerusalem) and the Angelus Novus of Paul Klee, which is at the center of the Theses on the concept of history, Benjamin’s true philosophical testament. The comparison between Kiefer’s art and Benjamin’s philosophy develops on the edge of counterpoint instead of consonance. The attempt is to show as a work of art and a philosophical text can dialogue, as an expression of different positions and autonomous languages. The common problematic ground, in our case, is that offered by the disasters of memory and the amnesia that characterizes our times.

I vivaci studi italiani degli scritti di Benjamin sulla poesia di Baudelaire (editi da Solmi nel 1962) hanno spesso trascurato l’importanza di allargare la propria prospettiva all’edizione francese del 1974 (Payot), contenente tre importanti saggi noti in Germania dalla fine degli anni ’60. Poiché tali testi sono stati finalmente tradotti in italiano solo nel 2006 (Einaudi) e ripubblicati nel 2012 in un’edizione più articolata (Neri Pozza), ci proponiamo di rilanciare un nostro studio a partire dalla versione italiana, per mostrare come essi gettino le basi della sociologia materialista della letteratura di Benjamin, ancora insufficientemente esplorata. Formatasi proprio muovendo dalla pratica traduttiva dei Quadri parigini, essa ha analizzato il ruolo della bohème, del flâneur e della modernità nell’eroismo lirico di Baudelaire all’apogeo del capitalismo.

The following essay aims to analyze the problem of repetition in the reflection of Walter Benjamin. Showing first of all how this concept, singularly neglected by critics, is the unexpected centre towards which the philosopher’s entire reflection converges, thus offering a new reading of his entire production. All the vast domains of Benjamin’s speculation are thoroughly rethought starting from this idea, revealing how what is at stake is a more articulated movement of the eternal recurrence of the same, which characterizes mythical temporality. A movement that has to do with the constitution of the human and which indeed exhibits an intimate link between repetition and innovation, repetition and the constructive principle. Another intention of this text is therefore to carry out an in depth analysis of this connection, to question the nature of such a gesture, both repetitive and differential, and its relationship with the recurrence of the ever self-same, therefore with the possible way out of the myth.

The philosophical-juridical debate on the state of exception, between Carl Schmitt and Walter Benjamin, focuses on an anomaly that has often been related to language (by Benjamin himself, but also by Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben). What link is there between language and anomy? A genealogy of the state of exception, if it must necessarily confront the threshold of language, must then also consider a further threshold (suggested by Schmitt): the threshold of writing. Without a focus on the conflict between orality (agraphos nomos) and literacy (written nomos), the genesis of the state of exception and its historical precedents would not be understood.

The following paper focuses on the theory of imitation developed by Walter Benjamin in the famous work of art essay. The essay is approached as a new sample of the “research on the origin” already used in his previous works, which will allow us to highlight the key role assigned to “mimesis” as the “origin” which discloses the unitary law of the whole age. The essay, therefore, overcomes the limited scope of aesthetics in which traditionally has been framed and aims to a wider reflection on the inner contradictions of modernity, regarding which mimesis indicates both the problem and a possible way out.

La ri essione critica sul mito e sulle sue derive nel mondo moderno sono pre- senti in buona parte del pensiero benjaminiano. A cominciare dagli scritti di filosofia del linguaggio nei quali il mito biblico istituisce il fondamento ontologico della parola originaria, tra rifiuto della storia e messianismo, fino alle considerazioni sul diritto e sul concetto di destino nella società borghese. Ma è soprattutto nella critica letteraria che Benjamin espone le sue più brillanti intuizioni: dallo sprigionarsi delle forze primordiali della natura che, nelle Affinità elettive di Goethe, tra violenza del diritto e libertà etica, si impossessano dei personaggi, alla dialettica del “risveglio” con Proust e i surrealisti, e all’esperienza profonda della vie antérieur di Baudelaire. Così, senza mai distanziarsi dal radicamento della condizione storica del suo tempo e senza mai cadere in facile misticismo, Walter Benjamin ha acutamente ispezionato le tracce del mito nella modernità, auspicando con intelligenza la liberazione umana dalla schiavitù della barbarie contingenti.

Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) and Gerhard Scholem (1897-1982) were bound by a deep friendship, intertwined since 1912 and continuing until 1940, when Benjamin committed suicide in Port Bou, terrified of being handed over to the Nazis. The two intellectuals, both of Jewish faith, made different existential choices: Benjamin remained in Germany until the racial persecution of the Nazi regime forced him to roam around Europe, while Scholem settled in Palestine and worked at the University of Jerusalem, where he could devote himself to the study of Jewish mysticism. The essay concerns the correspondence between the two scholars, particularly on Zionism, the proximity of Benjamin to the communism, the relationship with the scholars of the Institute of Social Research directed by Max Horkheimer and with Bertolt Brecht. On the background of the correspondence is clearly visible Benjamin's attempt not to give up his intellectual research and friendship, even though he was forced to look for marginal and peripheral places where he could survive in a Europe by then handed over to Hitler's wars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article intends to briefly analyze the characteristics that the form of the essay assumes in György Lukács, Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno’s thought. I focused on one single point: the central function that the essay acquires within the relations between particulars and system. The results are particularly interesting since, in the face of a substantial agreement on initial diagnosis, the three autors propose very different solutions: Lukács intends the form of the essay as the only possible way to overcome the fracture between world and totality; on the contrary, Adorno intends that same form as the only form adequate to express the insurmountability of the fracture; finally, Benjamin tries to keep both sides togheter: the autonomy of the trascendent and the salvation of the immanent.

The humiliated memory needs a political and epistemologycal rescue; it cannot be eliminated as part of the critic reflection of the world where we live. Modern rationality has been built in many ways and one must know their pathologies, only in that way we will be able to confront its effects. There is no other way of building our future and live our present than to incorporate and rescue all those traditions –with their pros and cons– so that we can live without hate.

Trata-se de uma resenha crítica da controvertida correspondência entre Theodor W. Adorno e Walter Benjamin - dois dos mais expressivos representantes da chamada primeira geração de teóricos críticos associados ao Instituto de Pesquisa Social. Além de remeter suas cartas à respectiva experiência intelectual de cada um deles, este artigo busca oferecer uma análise fundamentada dessa instigante interlocução filosófica, para além da rígida bipolarização entre "adornianos" e "benjaminianos", que, via de regra, tem predominado em sua recepção especializada, dentro e fora do Brasil. Para isso, procura-se enfatizar o contraponto produtivo entre a Dialética negativa de Adorno e o projeto das Passagens de Benjamin, tomando como centro gravitacional o processo construtivo deste último trabalho - cerne tanto das afinidades, quanto das insolúveis dissonâncias entre os dois autores. Esta pesquisa tem o apoio da FAPESP.

The essay by Adorno and Horkheimer about The Culture Industry (in the volume Dialectic of Enlightment) represents for Alberto Abruzzese the starting point of a reasoning on the intellectuals' role, the crisis of humanistic and academic knowledge and the new “screen and network” society. The author uses The Culture Industry as a text on the western civilization's sunset and at the same time on the metamorphosis of mass cultural production. Abruzzese refers to those scholars who deepened these issues with passion and acumen. From Benjamin to Canetti, from Debord to Foucault, from Lukacs to McLuhan: Abruzzese analyses a whole research path in media culture with the frankness of a personal self-examination.

The main aspect of our imaginary is the variety and the quantity of phenomenon that characterizes our everyday life. This fragmentary scenario makes it tough to consider every element as a part of a unique imaginary. However, we can take into account some classic works in order to consider different phenomenon manifestations of a unique generative principle. The aim of this paper is to examine the works of Goethe, Simmel, and Benjamin, considering that they have in common the capacity to assemble multitude in a single image of thought. In fact, although they start from different field of research, they examine the empirical world as an expression of a unique generative principle. Therefore, for Goethe leaf is the "original form" of the botanical world. While, in Simmel's work life is the "central idea" of the modern daily life. Finally, Parisian Arcades are for Benjamin the origin of the modern capitalism. Thus, the leaf, the life, and the Arcades, are meaningful examples to focus our attention on the opportunity to discover a synthetic image of our imaginary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article starts from the question if art still exists and what function it can still have. In front of contemporary artworks there is a disorientation which is a measure of the detachment between their language and the reality in which they are immersed. Starting from this observation, the theoretical position of Danto builds art’s autonomy, even compared to the aesthetic dimension and perception, which leads to neutralize the explosive potential of the artistic language. For this reason, Danto ignores the Kantian operation directed to identify an important moment for the structuring ethics of the human community in aesthetic sharing. In contrast, Didi-Huberman and Benjamin show us how art is essentially a practice that weaves a plot of elements of reality to upset them and thus bring a critical interrogation in the very heart of the reality of ethical relations in which it arose.

This work focuses on the apocalyptic nature of Giorgio Agamben's philosophical works. The dialogue with Agamben is full of references to St. Paul's letters, Kafka's literary works and Benjamin's messianism. This work tries to define the criteria of the kairological time, considered as a section of the chronological time which deactivates the discretionary mechanism, along the same lines as St. Paul's lessons, which reformulate the distinction between Jews / non-Jews. In this diacritic strategy lies the secret of any future philosophy, that is profanation, meant as the abolition of any sacred limit and the return to a human use.