#walter benjamin

[someforbiddenparadise]

The Writer's Technique in Thirteen Theses by Walter Benjamin (as appears in his 1928 treatise One-Way Street, in a section titled "Post No Bills")

[sivavakkiyar]

a story Walter Benjamin recounts in his essay on the tenth anniversary of Kafka’s death

[digitalfossils]

[sacredwhores]

"The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the "state of emergency" in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the struggle against Fascism. One reason why Fascism has a chance is that in the name of progress its opponents treat it as a historical norm. The current amazement that the things we are experiencing are "still" possible in the twentieth century is not philosophical. This amazement is not the beginning of knowledge - unless it is the knowledge that the view of history which gives rise to it is untenable."

Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History

[titusandronicusonice]

I’m happy everyone’s enjoying the Brecht-Benjamin posting. here’s a photo of them playing chess:

And one of Benjamin’s diary entries recounting a comment Brecht had made about chess:

From ‘Conversations with Brecht’ in Aesthetics and Politics (1977)

[proustian-dream]

The particular beauty of the openings of so many of Baudelaire's poems: their emergence from the abyss.

Walter Benjamin, Central Park

[edwordsmyth]

Walter Benjamin

[feignedremote]

Banner displayed at the student protests for Palestine at the University of Toronto, posted by assistant professor Esmat Elhalaby on Twitter. The central figure on the bannet is an imitation of Paul Klee's Angelus Novus, famously discussed in Walter Benjamin's Theses on the Philosophy of History. The accompanying text— reading "The only thing in the world worth beginning... the end of the world, of course!"—is from Aimé Césaire's Notebook of a Return to the Native Land.

You can read the Benjamin essay and see the original Klee work here. PDF of the Césaire book here.