Walter Benjamin's Archive

Images, Texts, Signs

Walter Benjamin, Erdmut Wizisla, Gudrun Schwarz, Michael Schwartz, Ursula Marx, Esther Leslie

• Publisher: Verso
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781784782030
• eBook ISBN:
  9781784782047
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

The work of the great literary and cultural critic Walter Benjamin is an audacious plotting of history, art, and thought; a reservoir of texts, commentaries, scraps, and fragments of everyday life, art, and dreams. Throughout his life, Benjamin gathered together all kinds of artifacts, assortments of images, texts, and signs, themselves representing experiences, ideas, and hopes, each of which was enthusiastically logged, systematized, and analyzed by their author. In this way, Benjamin laid the groundwork for the salvaging of his own legacy.

Intricate and intimate, Walter Benjamin's Archive leads readers to the heart of his intellectual world, yielding a rich and detailed portrait of its author.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. Tree of Conscientiousness: Benjamin as Archivist
• 2. Scrappy Paperwork: Collecting and Dispersal
• 3. From Small to Smallest Details: Micrographies
• 4. Physiognomy of the Thingworld: Russian Toys
• 5. Opinions et Pensées: His Son’s Words and Turns of Phrase
• 6. Daintiest Quarters: Notebooks
• 7. Travel Scenes: Picture Postcards
• 8. A Bow Being Bent: Composing, Building, Weaving
• 9. Constellations: Graphic Forms
• 10. Rag Picking: The Arcades Project
• 11. Past Turned Space: Arcades and Interiors
• 12. Hard Nuts to Crack: Riddles, Brainteasers, Word Games
• 13. Sibyls: Mosaics in Siena
• Bibliography and Abbreviations
• About the book