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Hosea 5:8-10 describes a Judahite campaign north into Benjaminite territory. Traditionally, this campaign has been situated in the middle of the eighth century during the conflict commonly known as the Syro-Ephraimite War. This historical context is problematic for several reasons, not least of which is that there is no evidence whatsoever for Judahite aggression during this conflict. Rather, Judah is depicted as helpless in the face of the Israelite-Aramean alliance, merely hoping to survive. On the other hand, the final decades of the eighth century, during the reign of Hezekiah of Judah and after the fall of Samaria to the Assyrians, fit the circumstances described in Hos 5:8-10 remarkably well. This was a period during which both textual and archaeological evidence indicate that Judah expanded northward into Benjaminite territory. Hosea 5:8-10, then, would represent a fascinating glimpse into a Benjaminite view of Hezekiah's northward expansion. It should come as no surprise that the Benjaminites were somewhat less positive about these developments than their Judahite counterparts were. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two common criticisms of hope in politics are that 1) it tacitly assumes an exploded metaphysical idea of historical progress and that 2) it thereby relieves humans of political responsibility and even robs them of agency altogether. The criticisms have a common source in hope's religious and particularly Christian conceptual history in the West. This article argues for a secular understanding of political hope as empowering collective agency that retains the utopian impulse expressed in religion yet which neither holds a monological account of historical change nor a supernatural agent of its effectuation. It does so by reconstructing the notions of transcendence, impossibility, the miraculous, and redemption in a secular manner in light of the thought of Ernst Bloch, Hannah Arendt, Václav Havel, and Walter Benjamin, among others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines humanist anecdotes about the turbulent times of the mid-twentieth century by F. C. Weiskopf and Lenka Reinerová. It provides a comparative reading of Weiskopf's Elend und Größe unserer Tage. Anekdoten 1933–1947 (1950) and Reinerová's "Tragischer Irrtum und richtige Diagnose" (published in Mandelduft, 1998). The anecdotal form of these texts harks back to the popular Enlightenment (Volksaufklärung) anecdotes of Heinrich von Kleist and Johann Peter Hebel, published in 1810–1811 during the Napoleonic Wars. The anecdote as a literary form is particularly well suited to the representation of wartime and political repression. While Weiskopf's anecdotes explore cruelty and heroism under the Nazi dictatorship, Reinerová's autobiographical text juxtaposes crisis points in her own life—her time as a political prisoner in France in 1939 and in Czechoslovakia in 1952–1953; her return to Prague as her family's sole survivor; and her periodic cancer treatment from 1948 onwards. Reinerová describes how the kindness of ordinary people, and her own optimism and resilience, helped her through the worst times. Her lived experience gives her authority as a storyteller in Walter Benjamin's sense. Both authors contrast human extremes—the good and the bad—yet both remain optimistic about the human capacity for good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the dialectical relationship between myth and utopia, fantasy and reason. The text presents 'interpretive keys' that enable historical consciousness to interpret the past and critically decipher glimpses of utopia in the traces of the present. The presented theoretical models are primarily those of the Frankfurt School philosophers Benjamin and Adomo, who base their positions on Hegel’s philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the connections that can be established between Walter Benjamin's aesthetic theory and John Dewey's aesthetic theory. To make this comparison, we first analyze Dewey's approach to the notion of aesthetic experience as a way of reconnecting the realm of art with everyday life, and then we study different texts by Walter Benjamin in which he suggests a form of aesthetic experience based on avant-garde art. This work hypothesizes that in both authors the notion of aesthetic experience is understood similarly and answers common problems concerning the place of art in the modern world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In pulcherrimum Ioseph (IpJ), a retelling of the life of "the most beautiful Joseph," appears among the Greek writings of the Syriac Church Father Ephraem and is preserved in at least seven languages: Greek, Latin, Coptic, Armenian, Arabic, Slavonic, and Georgian. Most scholars agree that The Life of Joseph/In pulcherrimum Ioseph was neither written by Ephraem nor in Syriac but was originally written in Greek. Some find, however, a substantial overlap with the Syriac Joseph traditions. A Greek papyrus from the sixth to seventh century provides the earliest material evidence. Beyond the first 120 lines of the Joseph-Christ typology, the retelling of the Joseph story contains no unambiguous Christian features. This article argues that the text is likely a composition of three different parts. After introducing IpJ and its characteristics, I present an overview of manuscripts and editions to illustrate its extraordinary popularity and several Sitz im Leben of this particular Joseph story. Finally, I will return to the question of provenance and place this specific retelling of Gen 37–46 within Jewish and Christian debates on the biblical Joseph. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The materialist conception of art understands art in relation to the material conditions within and by which art is produced and consumed. For cultural psychology, the materialist conception of art has been useful for developing insights into how individual perceptions are shaped, and are shaped by, culture as a collectively produced and historically embedded site of meaning-making. However, in much of cultural psychology, the relationship between progressive politics and the materialist conception of art remains under-appreciated. In this article, I consider how cultural psychologists might strengthen this relation through artistic shock, that is, a subjective, perceptual, and/or historiographical rupture brought about through the experience of art. In particular, I outline how Bertolt Brecht and Walter Benjamin theorised and practiced artistic shock, and examine what the work of these thinkers could mean for cultural psychologists working with political collectives to grapple with psychopolitical questions related to subjectivity, contradiction, and memory. I conclude by reflecting on how future work that seeks to politicise cultural psychology might engage with the materialist conception of art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Starting with Dadaism, which strikes the public’s moral standing, and above all with a certain kind of cinema which, according to Walter Benjamin, can punch the spectator awake, this article studies several different kinds of impact that contemporary art exerts. In this context, the possibility of an “acceptable shock” and an “unacceptable shock” is put forward, and, within both of these categories, the effectiveness of coming to blows with the audience is studied from the perspective of various different authors. On the other side of all this is the spectator abused by excess –whose modern antecedent we have situated in Georg Simmel’s blasé figure-, and another who is perhaps shaken up by the world before him, which would imply political mobilisation through art.

A partir del dadaísmo que golpea la moral del público y, sobre todo, de cierto tipo de cine que según Walter Benjamin es capaz de despertar al espectador de golpe, este artículo estudia diferentes impactos ejercidos por obra artística contemporánea. En este contexto se plantea la posibilidad de un “shock aceptable” y de un “shock inaceptable” y, dentro de cada una de estas categorías, se estudia la efectividad del golpe bajo la perspectiva de diferentes autores. Al otro lado de todo ello se encuentra un espectador bien maltratado por el exceso –cuyo antecedente moderno hemos situado en el blasé de Georg Simmel– o bien sacudido por el mundo que se abre ante él, lo cual implicaría una movilización política a través del arte.

The considerable literature discussing Walter Benjamin’s “idea of happiness” points both to the important role it plays in his thought and, in this context, to the diversity of interpretations his elliptic style has generated. The pivotal role played by the term in Benjamin’s oeuvre from his early writings on language to his Passagenwerk originates in what has been regarded as his “dialectics of happiness.” While this is certainly a plausible diagnosis, a closer look at the wording of the relevant passages in Benjamin’s oeuvre reveals more nuanced and numerous manifestations of the indirectness that characterizes his approach to happiness. Benjamin invokes the term “happiness” (Glück) at crucial crossroads in his thought. It oscillates between potentiality and inaccessibility; individual and collective experience; commemoration and utopia, Eros and emancipation, concrete phenomena and abstract ideas, and last but not least between politics and theology. Equally striking are the divergent modes of expression in which Benjamin’s notion of happiness is articulated. They range from the inexpressible (das Ausdruckslose) to the most lyrical effusions. My talk will correlate Benjamin’s seemingly incommensurable invocations of happiness with the very detours, incompletions, and indirections in his writings about this state of being.

Questo saggio riflette sul costitutivo bilinguismo che caratterizza l'autotraduzione in italiano dei poeti dialettali del Novecento. Qui, propone Agamben, la poesia non abita più nell'identità di una lingua, ma trova una vera casa nello spazio bianco che unisce e divide i due testi, spesso stampati su pagine contrapposte. Agamben fa risalire questo bilinguismo poetico a Dante, che contrappone la lingua volgare, "che i bambini acquisiscono da chi li circonda", alla lingua che chiama "grammaticale", che dobbiamo imparare attraverso un lungo percorso di studi. Questa tensione traduttiva tra due lingue non riguarda solo la poesia dialettale, ma, come dimostrano chiaramente le traduzioni di Hölderlin da Pindaro e Sofocle, definisce ogni autentica intenzione poetica. Assumere questo bilinguismo intrinseco è, secondo Agamben, il compito del traduttore e del poeta. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay reflects on the constitutive bilingualism that characterizes the self-translation of twentieth-century poets in dialect into Italian. Here, Agamben proposes, the poem no longer dwells within the identity of one language but finds a true home in the white space that joins and divides the two texts, often printed on facing pages. Agamben traces back this poetic bilingualism to Dante, who contrasts the vernacular language, "which infants acquire from those around them," and the language he calls "grammatical," which we have to learn through a long course of study. This translative tension between two languages is not just an issue for poetry in dialect, but, as Hölderlin's translations from Pindar and Sophocles clearly show, also defines every authentic poetic intention. Taking on this inherent bilingualism is, according to Agamben, the task of both the translator and the poet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Baldwin Buckstone took over the management at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 1853, assuming control from Benjamin Webster who had been manager since 1837. They had both served in the company of David Edward Morris, the proprietor who had overseen the building of the new Haymarket Theatre in 1821. When Morris died, his estate passed into a trust on behalf of his widow, Maria Sarah. A lease dating from 1871 (now in the Library at the Garrick Club) describes the agreement between Buckstone and Maria Sarah. Not only does the lease detail the arrangement between the two parties, it also includes an extensive 214-page room-by-room inventory of the Haymarket Theatre, revealing hundreds of items accumulated throughout half a century of constant use. This article outlines the peculiarities of the lease and pays special attention to the music and dance holdings which feature prominently in the inventory. The lease is remarkable not only for the diversity, breadth, and specificity of its contents, but also because it serves as a rare document of theatre business and tells us more about the day-to-day life of one of London's most important theatres in the mid-nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.

The aim of this article is to explore the potential tension that according to Walter Benjamin is at stake in the opposition between the bourgeois conception of language and an inquiry into the essence of language, taking into account important texts written in 1916, in order to shed light on language that moves in the direction of a dialogical situation premised on a tragic approach. More specifically, beginning with an outline of Benjamin's notion of the relationship between language and action, with particular attention to his 1916 letter to Martin Buber and the role of language, it then goes on to discuss the structure of language in the 1916 essay on language, at the end of which Benjamin asserts that there is a "tragic relationship between the languages of human speakers". Drawing on a posthumously published essay from 1916, entitled The Role of Language in Tragedy and Trauerspiel, it finally seeks to show how this tragic relationship is essential to a dialogical situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Aufklärung: Revista de Filosofia is the property of Aufklarung: Revista de Filosofia 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.)

The birth of printing brought great changes to literature, and the continuous fragmentation of printmaking media allowed pictorial art products to flow into the market. However, no one could have imagined that just a few decades later, the birth of photography would remove the human hand from the main artistic task of image reproduction, which would henceforth be reserved for the eyes staring at the lens. Walter Benjamin, as an early scholar among Western intellectuals in the 20th century, paid attention to the study of the relationship between photography and painting. The Small History of Photography and Works of Art in the Era of Mechanical Reproduction written by him can be regarded as classic works of photographic theory, modern cultural theory and modern art theory. His focus is on the juxtaposition study of photography and painting, two art categories that are both visual image presentation, which is pioneering, original and foundational. Although the paper is not long, the game between symbol and image, politics and economy, and subjective and objective is particularly wonderful. Therefore, it is particularly necessary to dig deeper into Benjamin's theoretical connotation and fully reveal his value in all aspects. The combination of the relationship between painting and photography has also injected impetus into the construction of contemporary visual culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adorno and Benjamin's common intellectual project has been labeled, by Adorno, an Inverse Theology. This re-translation of theology into it's metaphysical truth contents can be only fully comprehended by taking into account their position towards the work of art. In this article, I locate the place where the categorical framework of "inverse theology" is displayed in a most complete manner in the discussion of Kafka's prose and extrapolate the outline of an Inverse theology from Adorno and Benjamin's readings of some of his most famous texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the indiscriminate consumption of fossil fuels has led to a dramatic increase in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Over the past few decades, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased from 280 to 370 ppm and is expected to increase by about 1.8 ppm each year. Carbon dioxide, such as light, appropriate temperature, water and nutrients, is one of the essential nutrients needed by plants, which is currently less than required by plants. In general, plants need to absorb water from the soil and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and use it in photosynthesis, which This is done by absorbing carbon dioxide through the through the pores. In general, stomatal properties have a major influence on the response of plants to carbon dioxide treatment. Leaf morphology, including stomatal density, may have a significant effect on the response of plants to carbon dioxide. There seems to be a great deal of variation among plant species in terms of how stomata density changes with increasing CO2 concentration. The opening and closing of the stomata through carbon dioxide absorption, regulates the amount of water wasted when adverse environmental conditions. In fact, increasing carbon dioxide in plants reduces stomatal conductance and transpiration, increases water use efficiency, photosynthesis rate and higher light utilization efficiency. Materials and Methods This study was conducted as a split plot experiment based on a completely randomized design with three replications in the research greenhouse of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. Treatments included three concentrations of carbon dioxide (380 ppm as control, 700 and 1050 ppm) as the main plot and two species of ornamental ficus (Benjamin and Elastic) as sub plots. At first, cuttings were rooted in boxes containing washed sand infused with carbendazim for 8 weeks. After rooting, the cuttings were transferred to culture media containing appropriate soil mixture and exposed to different concentrations of carbon dioxide for 16 weeks. Were affected. Mean daily temperature of 25 and mean night temperature of 18 °C and 65% humidity were considered equal for all treatments. Then, after the treatments, Stomatal traits were measured. Results and Conclusion The results showed that high concentrations of carbon dioxide can affect the anatomical traits of Ficus ornamental species. In this study, the results obtained from the analysis of variance of the studied traits showed that the effect of different concentrations of carbon dioxide was not significant only for the stomatal index, but for other traits studied in this study. The main effect of carbon dioxide concentration was significant at 1% probability level.The results showed that the traits of stomata diameter in plant species and different concentrations of carbon dioxide were significant at 5 and 1% probability levels, respectively. Also with increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide the diameter of the stomatal decreased so that the highest stomatal diameter was related to the concentration of 380 ppm and the lowest to the concentration of 1050 ppm. In fact, increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide from the level of 380 to 1050 ppm led to a decrease of 19.91 percent in the diameter of the stomatal. Increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the environment of plants, initially increases the slope of the concentration of carbon dioxide between the surrounding air and the chamber under their stomata, and then more carbon dioxide through the pores leads to a decrease in the slope due to the abundance of carbon dioxide in the chamber below the stomata, This action reduces the diameter of the stomatal. As the concentration of carbon dioxide increased the stomatal cell density and stomatal area. Among the high concentrations of carbon dioxide the concentration of 700 ppm affected most of the traits, including stomatal diameter, stomatal area, epidermal cell density, stomach length and stomach width. though there was no significant difference between high concentrations of carbon dioxide (700 and 1050 ppm). According to the results of this study, it seems that anatomical traits are influenced by environmental factors and are not recognized as a hereditary factor. Among the species, the elastica species showed the most reaction to carbon dioxideal. Conclusion In general, clarifying the stomatal response to carbon dioxide concentration is important for understanding the stomatal physiology and gas exchange between vegetation and the In general, stomatal properties have a major influence on the response of plants to carbon dioxide treatment. Carbon dioxide at appropriate concentrations can increase growth and also affect the stomach properties to allow the plant to adapt to environmental conditions.

Cada amanecer marca una tensión entre el oscuro pasado y el claro devenir. Pero la oscuridad no evoca la maldad o la desolación, ni la claridad a la bondad o a la calidez de un suceder. Por el contrario, la primera determina una consciencia del pasado entretejida por el olvido en el idealizado desorden y caos de la memoria épica; mientras que en la luz se gesta el progreso, la memoria eternizada, ordenada y pausada por una peligrosa teleología de vida. Sin embargo, algunos ignoran que en el vasto universo de posibilidades las insignificancias poseen la capacidad de iluminar todo de un golpe. Ignoran cómo lo inexpresivo de este universo absorbe a la luz, a la razón de las cosas. El Código Civil Francés de 1804 es un gran ejemplo de esa ingenuidad. Un suceso contado en una sola dirección, sin bemoles, sin retraso. Un proceso que impone la mejor forma de vivir: así fue planeada la codificación. Entonces, debe proceder la dislocación de su eje central, el Code: contemplarse a sí mismo como aquel que observa un amanecer, conjurando la amalgama de colores antes no vistos, desde el oscuro pasado hasta la claridad del futuro.

This essay examines Walter Benjamin’s politico-theological conception of time (the messianic time) against the background of the mechanical philosophy which the Copernican turn brought about. My argument is that the messianic time which intervenes in the mechanical, ‘homogenous, empty time’ shares the formal logic of the divine which intervenes in the Newtonian mathematical space–time via the differential as the non-all (not universal). Newton formulated the mathematical space as ontologically closed by ‘the dominion of One’. But, as George Berkeley’s critique of Newton’s differential shows, the differential comes to reveal the non-all in it. The divine in fact cannot be ontologically closed, leaving the universe divided into the merely mechanical (secular science) and the infinite (the divine as the non-all which does not fit the mechanical). Quentin Meillassoux formulates the mathematical space–time as simultaneously All and non-all too, but with no theological project for interpretation. By contrast, Benjamin’s use of the term the differential shows that he conceives the non-all left from the mechanical as a differential point within the mathematical space–time which enables manifold translations of the divine as the All beyond the mechanical space–time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cuando Walter Benjamin desarrolla en el “Prólogo epistemocrítico” de El origen del Trauerspiel alemán la más extensa de las presentaciones de su teoría del conocimiento (así como la única publicada en vida), lo hace a partir de una explícita reinterpretación de la filosofía platónica, en particular de su “doctrina de las ideas”. Este artículo se propone investigar las afinidades entre el prólogo de Benjamin y la filosofía platónica, poniendo especial énfasis en las relaciones entre los desarrollos metodológicos de ambos autores, es decir entre la “forma de la exposición” de Benjamin y la dialéctica de Platón. A partir de explorar estas relaciones, se busca poner de relieve una visión de la filosofía que ambos autores comparten, y de la que se quiere señalar la originalidad, potencia y actualidad.

Neste artigo estudo uma disposição afetiva abordada por Walter Benjamin nas Teses sobre o conceito de história, mais precisamente, estudo a empatia (Einfühlung). Este afeto estaria presente no tipo de historiografia rejeitada pelo autor, uma vez que ela seria a “empatia pelos vencedores”. Trabalho no presente estudo com uma hipótese “ou-ou”. Benjamin diferencia dois tipos de escrita da história, a inautêntica e a autêntica: ou bem o historiógrafo parte do horror (Grauen) inerente aos acontecimentos históricos, ou bem ele elege certos passados e sente empatia (Einfühlung) pelos espólios da transmissão cultural. Também em outros escritos de Benjamin encontramos uma atribuição pejorativa à empatia, e a razão para tal, sugerimos, é a de que o historiador deve “fazer explodir” a linha de continuidade da história, enfatizando, em vez de um afeto conciliador ou mesmo apaziguador e conformista, o afeto colérico com relação aos acontecimentos opressores e, portanto, um aspecto “destrutivo”, “disruptivo” da história.

Abstract This essay proposes an interpretation of the relationship between law, violence, and justice based on Walter Benjamin’s work ‘Critique of Violence.’ I argue that, in the essay, the three terms are sustained by an underlying notion of authority, which, according to Benjamin, has a mythical character. This is shown by an interpretation of how law’s authority is linked to its mythical foundation. Then, by analysing Western mythology and how the notion of authority in our tradition is linked to the Roman figures of Romulus and Numa, I propose a new interpretation of the relationship between law and myth in Benjamin’s text, showing how law also depends on a mythical justice and how the critique of violence must also involve a critique of justice. I end the paper by tracing a parallel between Benjamin’s divine violence and what could be termed divine justice.

The article establishes a dialogue between Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin and Giorgio Agamben’s theories, transposing them to the Brazilian social reality. The naturalization of inequality is a cruel mark of our society, and the philosophy of law contributes to a juridical approach that takes into account the social disparities. First, the state of exception will be analyzed in the light of Benjamin and Agamben’s works. Later, with Schmitt, the issue of exception will be analyzed together with the political decision, demonstrating the intrinsic connection between law and politics and the reflection of this in the worsening of social inequalities. It will be established the difference between the Schmitt’s concept of "Enemy" and the Agamben’s concept of homo sacer in the establishment of the state of exception and how the concept of "enemy" was distorted with the construction of Enemy Criminal Law’s Theory.

This article weighs in on new debates about the affiliation of the tribe of Benjamin between Israel and Judah in the early monarchy. It points to two underappreciated aspects of the Hebrew Bible's account of tribal realities in the books of Kings: the anonymity of the ten tribes attributed to Israel in 1 Kgs 11–12, and how unusual the absence of a complete and detailed account of tribal arrangements in Kings is in the context of a Primary History as a whole. It argues that both of these realities reflect a deliberate effort to obscure Benjamin's northern origins and that, in fact, it is impossible to come up with a plausible list of ten Israelite tribes without Benjamin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking its point of departure from Jullien's primary claim in The Silent Transformations that ancient Greek ontology propels European thought into 'the vertigo of the event,' the article turns toward a European thinker whom Jullien does not mention in this context, namely Walter Benjamin, and asks whether his work, too, succumbs to this vertigo. The choice of Benjamin as a 'test case' is governed by two factors: while his work is widely associated with notions of the event, there is little recognition of the degree to which he was engaged with the Daodejing (in translation) from the early 1910s to the late 1930s. Divided into four chronologically ordered sections, each of which is prefaced by a claim advanced in The Silent Transformations, the article shows how Benjamin's concepts of transition, effective non-action (under the term 'proletarian general strike'), mimesis, 'the second technology,' and Jetztzeit ('now-time') are all traversed by a mediated conception of the Dao. The primary question around this re-evaluation of his work, guided by the idea of 'the silent transformations' that Jullien adopts from Wang Fuzhi, is whether the theory of revolution Benjamin developed in the 1930s can be characterized as Daoist or, better yet, Marxist-Daoist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Pensamiento Jurídico is the property of Universidad Nacional de Colombia 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.)

Copyright of Thélème is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid 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.)

The sense of kairos is of time as having an event-like character. Fundamental here is a split between quantitative time and a qualitatively distinct moment. The decisive moment connects the kairological to crisis. By exploring the accounts of kairos in three contemporaries responding to the sense of crisis in 1920s Germany—Benjamin, Heidegger, and Tillich—this article shows the manner in action in the kairos can be understood as both responsive and non-opportunist. Themes such as the "tiger leap" (Benjamin), the "moment of vision" (Heidegger), and the "shuddering" of time (Tillich) are analyzed to demonstrate how these accounts taken in dialogue with one another give an understanding of kairos, as a displacement and disruption of time as chronos and not simply as an interruption in chronological time. Such a disruption of chronological time is a necessary condition for responsible action, giving a measure also for the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the relationship between the philosophical concept of the “autonomy of art” and the cultural policy-notion of “artistic freedom”? This article seeks to answer this question by taking the Swedish governmental report This Is How Free Art Is (Så fri är konsten 2021) and its reception in the Swedish main stream media as an emblematic example and by reading it symptomatically. Firstly, it traces the critical history of “artistic freedom” and the interrelated term “arm’s length distance”, primarily in the context of Great Britain. Secondly, it critically reconstructs the concept of the “autonomy of art” in the history of Western philosophy by making a critique of a fetishized notion of art’s autonomy in the name of l’art pour l’art. The main argument is that the idea about art’s autonomy, on which the Swedish report leans, resembles such philosophical and art historical idea of art’s autonomy. The claim is also that such an understanding of art does not tie up, either philosophically or historically, with the arm’s length principle, since they ultimately rely on different conceptions of art’s freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an interpretation of the enigmatic concept of 'happy life' in the philosophy of Giorgio Agamben. It departs from a recognition of the ambivalence in Agamben's use of sacred and profane terminology that informs this concept. In a decidedly Benjaminian frame, and with the help of esoteric religious images, happy life is described by Agamben as a messianic life and a blessed life, while he, at the same time, explicitly defines it as a perfectly profane life. Reading Agamben's philosophy as aspiring to a radical transformation of our mode of being in the world, I argue that the consistency in his idiosyncratic attitude toward the sacred and profane can be shown, and new light can be shed on the nature of happy life. Beyond prevailing negative characterizations that describe what happy life is not to be, the interpretation developed in this paper argues that it positively entails an ethos of love and a practice of use. As such, the paper aims to contribute to recent attempts at analyzing the curative and promissory aspects of Agamben's philosophy over and above its critical potential, and provide a basic outline of happy life that allows for comparative analysis with other contemporary authors on the notion of happiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.

“Words strain, / Crack and sometimes break, … will not stay in place, / Will not staystill” (Burnt Norton V). Using words and not being used by them is rare to Eliot’s thought tormented figures, from his drama Sweeney Agonistes to Four Quartets. The struggle with words is a constant trait of Eliot’s poetry, besides being common among modernists all over Europe. His drama’s broken syntax mirrors the clashing mixture of Aeschylean tragedy, Aristophanic comedy, and the popular culture of music-hall, cabaret, and jazz, which make up the play. As a result, the play brings forth a modernistic defamiliarizing, and metatheatrical effect, by breaking up the linear rapport between action and word, actor and gesture, sign and signified. Poetic drama or unfinished poem, Sweeney Agonistes has been recently revalued (Chinitz, Buttram, Daniel, Cuda), but in its daring avant-garde experimentalism (de Villiers), still eludes interpretations, mainly because of the far from clear reason why Eliot neither finished it nor included it in his theatrical production. If, however, we place the play in the context of various dramatic theories and plays of the time, we may read its incongruities, and disjunctions between words and things, as a one of the modernistic traits that were widely discussed at the time, among others, by Walter Benjamin in The Origin of the German Trauerspiel. Benjamin’s new way of looking at allegory, stressing its self-referential import, may help us find one more key to the revolutionary direction Eliot had envisaged in his non-dramatic tragedy. As Eliot himself said of Seneca: “the drama is all in the word and the word has no further reality behind it”. Although a link between Eliot’s conservative modernism and Benjamin’s messianism would seem unlikely, recent studies have highlighted some of their common ground (Neilson, Lehman). In order to account for the play’s disjunctions and metatheatrical language, I will dwell on Eliot’s notion of the dissociation of sensibility (1920–1927) comparing it to Benjamin’s allegorical perception, or “the falling apart of modern man”.

This article discusses the theatrical form named in German Trauerspiel (the baroque drama or mourning play), focusing on the constitutive elements of its concept – both play and mourning. Although it has often been compared or reduced to ‘tragedy,’ in a sort of excessive anticipation of Romantic theatrical forms, Trauerspiel is more likely to express the traumas of secularization in the early modern age, as both noble and humble subjects face religious and political turmoil. Taking inspiration from Walter Benjamin’s renowned thesis in the book „Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels“ (1925), the article investigates some crucial actual elements of baroque drama-writing such as sovereignty, guilt, empathy, and the search for further intersections with the theories of playwriting proposed in 1938 by Johan Huizinga and discussed a few years later by French critic and thinker Georges Bataille

O artigo discute a tese, defendida por Walter Benjamin, segundo a qual o teatro épico de Bertolt Brecht é um teatro que se coloca à altura do desenvolvimento técnico de seu tempo e, ao mesmo tempo, resgata uma tradição teatral alemã que remonta ao período barroco. Colocando em questão a aproximação entre o barroco e a vanguarda por meio do conceito de alegoria, a argumentação defende que essa se daria antes pela predominância de uma construção artística que apresenta o herói em cena ao mesmo tempo em que espelha o processo de sua construção social. O afastamento em relação ao trágico que caracterizaria tanto o teatro épico quanto o barroco se daria então pela tentativa de explicitar o confronto entre a técnica teatral e o corpo do ator na apresentação do herói, que não surge mais, como na tragédia, por meio da negação dos condicionantes históricos do destino.

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La cuestión de la técnica y los posibles efectos e implicancias de la misma en las sociedades contemporáneas es una temática recurrente en pensadores del siglo XX. Se trata de un fenómeno que de una u otra manera fue abordado por quienes intentaron comprender el ritmo de las sociedades de la época. Nos interesa particularmente pensar los desarrollos de tres autores que, según nuestro criterio, han reflexionado sobre la cuestión de la técnica moderna junto a otros aspectos sociales y culturales claves para comprenderla en profundidad. Por un lado, Herbert Marcuse se refiere a los avances tecnológicos en el marco de un diagnóstico crítico de las sociedades del capitalismo avanzado con el interés de pensar la posibilidad de transformarlas. Walter Benjamin, por otro, reflexiona sobre el progreso técnico en relación con las posibilidades del mismo en el ámbito estético: la reproductibilidad técnica de la obra de arte y, específicamente, el sentido político de este fenómeno junto a su carácter sintomático del proceso social en general. Por último, Martin Heidegger también aborda la cuestión de la técnica moderna y algunas de sus implicancias, pero desde otro lugar: en el marco de una reflexión acerca de la historia de la interpretación del ser o, mejor, de la metafísica. Nos interesa ensayar un acercamiento al planteo de estos pensadores, y, quizás, encontrar y articular algunos puntos de encuentro o, también, de desencuentro.

Este ensayo propone una lectura de la VIII de las Tesis sobre la historia, de Benjamin que la “emplea”, en el sentido en que el propio Benjamin sostenía que una exposición materialista de la historia debía emplear los fragmentos del pasado para interrogar radicalmente el presente y resistir a las opresiones. Se pone en relación esta tesis con las palabras de las mujeres zapatistas, pronunciadas con motivo de la inauguración del Segundo encuentro internacional de mujeres que luchan, para argumentar que el “estado de excepción” que Benjamin había advertido era en verdad la regla, lo sigue siendo hoy específicamente (aunque no únicamente) para las mujeres y otros cuerpos, individuales y colectivos, feminizados. Se argumenta también que la tradición de lucha de las mujeres indígenas producida por una colonialidad capitalista que sigue en curso es la que hoy nos muestra la normalidad del “estado de excepción” contemporáneo. Finalmente se propone que las luchas de las mujeres son, también, ejercicios críticos y prácticas de resistencia e invención, para una justicia por-venir.