1
1
The dialectics of seeing : Walter Benjamin and the Arcades project / Susan Buck-Morss.
Main entry:

Buck-Morss, Susan, author.

Title & Author:

The dialectics of seeing : Walter Benjamin and the Arcades project / Susan Buck-Morss.

Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : MIT Press, [1989]
©1989

Description:

xii, 493 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Series:

Studies in contemporary German social thought

Notes:
An English reconstruction and analysis of Benjamin's Passagen-Werk.
Includes index.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 478-484) and index.
Temporal origins -- Spatial origins -- Natural history: fossil -- Mythic history: fetish -- Mythic nature: wish image -- Historical nature: ruin -- Is this Philosophy? -- Dream world of mass culture -- Materialist pedagogy -- Afterword: revolutionary inheritance -- Afterimages.
Current Copyright Fee: GBP15.00 0.
Summary:

Walter Benjamin's magnum opus was a book he did not live to write. In The Dialectics of Seeing, Susan Buck-Morss offers an inventive reconstruction of the Passagen Werk, or Arcades Project, as it might have taken form.Working with Benjamin's vast files of citations and commentary which contain a myriad of historical details from the dawn of consumer culture, Buck-Morss makes visible the conceptual structure that gives these fragments philosophical coherence. She uses images throughout the book to demonstrate that Benjamin took the debris of mass culture seriously as the source of philosophical truth.The Paris Arcades that so fascinated Benjamin (as they did the Surrealists whose "materialist metaphysics" he admired) were the prototype, the 19th century "ur-form" of the modern shopping mall. Benjamin's dialectics of seeing demonstrate how to read these consumer dream houses and so many other material objects of the time - from air balloons to women's fashions, from Baudelaire's poetry to Grandville's cartoons - as anticipations of social utopia and, simultaneously, as clues for a radical political critique.Buck-Morss plots Benjamin's intellectual orientation on axes running east and west, north and south - Moscow Paris, Berlin-Naples - and shows how such thinking in coordinates can explain his understanding of "dialectics at a standstill." She argues for the continuing relevance of Benjamin's insights but then allows a set of "afterimages" to have the last word.Susan Buck-Morss is Professor of Political Philosophy and Social Theory at Cornell University. The Dialectics of Seeing is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.

ISBN:

0262022680
9780262022682
9780262521642 paperback
0262521644 paperback

Subject:

Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940. Passagen-Werk.
Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940 Philosophy.
Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940 Political and social views.
Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940.
Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940 Philosophie.
Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940 Pensée politique et sociale.
Passagen-Werk (Benjamin, Walter)
Social problems in literature.
Problèmes sociaux dans la littérature.
Philosophy.
Political and social views.
Populaire cultuur.
Filosofische aspecten.
Germany

Added entries:

Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940. Passagen-Werk. English. 1989.
Studies in contemporary German social thought.

Walter Benjamin and the Arcades project

Holdings:

Location: Library main 48523
Call No.: ID:89-B7574
Status: Available

Actions:
1
1

Sign up to get news from us

Email address
First name
Last name
By signing up you agree to receive our newsletter and communications about CCA activities. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more information, consult our privacy policy or contact us.

Thank you for signing up. You'll begin to receive emails from us shortly.

We’re not able to update your preferences at the moment. Please try again later.

You’ve already subscribed with this email address. If you’d like to subscribe with another, please try again.

This email was permanently deleted from our database. If you’d like to resubscribe with this email, please contact us

Please complete the form below to buy:
[Title of the book, authors]
ISBN: [ISBN of the book]
Price [Price of book]

First name
Last name
Address (line 1)
Address (line 2) (optional)
Postal code
City
Country
Province/state
Email address
Phone (day) (optional)
Notes

Thank you for placing an order. We will contact you shortly.

We’re not able to process your request at the moment. Please try again later.

Folder ()

Your folder is empty.

Email:
Subject:
Notes:
Please complete this form to make a request for consultation. A copy of this list will also be forwarded to you.

Your contact information
First name:
Last name:
Email:
Phone number:
Notes (optional):
We will contact you to set up an appointment. Please keep in mind that your consultation date will be based on the type of material you wish to study. To prepare your visit, we'll need:
  • — At least 2 weeks for primary sources (prints and drawings, photographs, archival documents, etc.)
  • — At least 48 hours for secondary sources (books, periodicals, vertical files, etc.)
...