The Prosaic Revolution: Language and Transparency in Walter Benjamin's 'Arcades Project'
A/Prof. Alison Ross (Monash University)

May 27, 2014, 12:00pm - 1:30pm
European Philosophy and the History of Ideas Research Group (EPHI), Deakin University

C2.05
221 Burwood Hwy
Melbourne 3125
Australia

Sponsor(s):

  • School of Humanities and Social Sciences
  • Centre for Citizenship and Globalization

Organisers:

Deakin University

Details

This paper will consider what repertoire of references is relevant for understanding the meaning of 'revolution' in Benjamin's Arcades Project. Against some recent Benjamin scholarship, I will argue that Benjamin's work is defined by an impulse to escape from entrapment in sensuous form and that his diverse ways of referring to revolution all align with this impulse. In particular, I will show that one of the main ways this impulse is expressed is in the value Benjamin places on transparent, as opposed to encrypted, communication. This structure of evaluation, which pivots on the clarity of what he calls 'naming language', spans his earliest writing right up until the Arcades.

Alison Ross is an Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow in Philosophy at Monash University. She has published widely in contemporary European philosophy and is the author of The Aesthetic Paths of Philosophy: Presentation In Kant, Heidegger, Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy (Stanford, 2007), and the co-editor of Jacques Rancière and the Contemporary Scene: The Philosophy of Radical Equality (Continuum, 2012).

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