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Walter Benjamin Timeline

After Life

  • 1892 born on 15. July in Berlin.
  • 1902-1905 Attends the Kaiser Friedrich-Wilhelm Gymnasium in Berlin.
  • 1905-1907 In boarding school in Thüringen, becomes deeply influenced by Gustav Wyneken.
  • 1907 Benjamin returns to the Kaiser Friedrich-Wilhelm Gymnasium.
  • 1912 Commencement of the study of philosophy at the Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg. Friendship with the poet C.F. Heinle.
  • 1912/13 Continuation of studies in Berlin.
  • 1913 first journey to Paris.
  • 1914 Elected President of the Berlin "Free Student Group". He becomes acquainted with Dora Sophie Pollak.

  • 1919 doctor's degree with the work The Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism.
  • 1921/22 Benjamin writes the treatise on Goethe's Elective Affinities.
  • 1923 First encounter with Adorno. Scholem goes to Palestine. Benjamin publishes his translation of Baudelaire's Tableaux Parisiens and begins working on Origins of the German Trauerspiel.
  • 1924 Benjamin goes to Capri, meets Asja Lacis and becomes involved with Marxism.

1942 Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno edit To the Memory of Walter Benjamin where Theses on the Philosophy of History first appears.

1955 Theodor W. Adorno and Gretel Adorno edit the two-volume selection of Benjamin's Schriften for the publisher Suhrkamp.

1972 Publication of the six-volume critical edition of Benjamin's Gesammelte Schriften [Collected Writings] is begun by Suhrkamp. The final book, Vol. 7: 2, was completed in 1989.

1990s Harvard University buys the copyright from Suhrkamp Verlag

  • 1934 visits Brecht's place of exile, Skovsbostrand in Denmark.
  • 1934/35 Stays in San Remo from October to February. Benjamin becomes a member of the Institute for Social Research. The essay"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" appears in a French translation in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung.
  • 1938 Last stay with Brecht in Denmark.
  • 1938/39 meets Adorno for the last time in San Remo
  • 1939 From September to November Benjamin is interned in the Camp des travailleurs volontaires in Nièvre. "Some Motifs in Baudelaire" is published by the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung.

1924

1940

1914

2000

1890

1914 C.F. Heinle, commits suicide with his fiancée in the 'Sprechsaal'

1915 Makes the acquaintance of Gerhard (Gershom) Scholem.

1915/17 Studies in Munich. Benjamin becomes further acquainted with the Stefan George circle and the work of the Americanist, Walter Lehmann, in whose classes on Ancient Mexican culture WB first meets Rainer Maria Rilke.

1917 Benjamin marries Dora Sophie Pollak

1918 Birth of son, Stefan. Acquaintance with Ernst Bloch.

  • 1925 Benjamin's attempt to qualify as lecturer at the University of Frankfurt with his Trauerspiel book as Habilitationsschrift is unsuccessful. Benjamin and the writer-translator, Franz Hessel, begin to translate Remembrance of Things Past
  • 1926/27 In December and January, Benjamin visits Moscow.
  • 1927 Begins the Passagen-Werk. At the end of May, WB makes radio debut. Tries hashish, opium and mescaline.
  • 1928 Origins of the German Trauerspiel and One-Way Street are published
  • 1929 "Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia" is published. Meet Bertolt Brecht.
  • 1930 Walter and Dora Benjamin are divorced
  • 1932 First stay on Ibiza from April to July.
  • 1933 In March, Benjamin goes into exile in Paris.

1940 Works on the "Theses on the Philosophy of History" Through the intercession of Max Horkheimer, Benjamin receives an affidavit and visa for the USA. He leaves Paris in June and makes his way to Lourdes. An attempt to flee across the Pyrenees fails. In the border town of Port Bou, Benjamin takes his life with a lethal dose of morphine on 27 September.

The Life of Students: (1914-1915)

There is a view of history that puts its faith in the infinite extent of time and thus concerns itself only with the speed, or lack of it, with which people and epochs advance along the path of progress. [Hegelian Progress]

This corresponds to a certain absence of coherence and rigor in the demands it makes on the present. [No Agency for the Present]

The following remarks, in contrast, delineate a particular condition in which history appears to be concentrated in a single focal point, like those that have traditionally been found in the utopian images of the philosophers. The elements of the ultimate condition do not manifest themselves as formless progressive tendencies, but are deeply rooted in every present in the form of the most endangered, excoriated, and ridiculed ideas and products of the creative mind. The historical task is to disclose this immanent state of perfection and make it absolute, to make it visible and dominant in the present. [Give agency to the present]

Two Types of Messianism according to Scholem

This condition cannot be captured in terms of the pragmatic description of details (the history of institutions, customs, and so on); in fact, it eludes them. Rather, the task is to grasp its metaphysical structure, as with the messianic domain or the idea of the French Revolution. [to show that the present always also has agency]

"messianic domain"

--a return to an older era (i.e., the Davidic kingdom) that was revolutionary but only within the confines of the tradition

"French Revolution"

--The utopian-catastrophic model

(Scholem also calls it apocalyptic) envisions a rupture of tradition and the inauguration of an entirely new era.

On the Concept of History - Thesis I

It is well-known that an automaton once existed, which was so constructed that it could counter any move of a chess-player with a counter-move, and thereby assure itself of victory in the match. A puppet in Turkish attire, water-pipe in mouth, sat before the chessboard, which rested on a broad table. Through a system of mirrors, the illusion was created that this table was transparent from all sides. In truth, a hunchbacked dwarf who was a master chess-player sat inside, controlling the hands of the puppet with strings. One can envision a corresponding object to this apparatus in philosophy. The puppet called “historical materialism” is always supposed to win. It can do this with no further ado against any opponent, so long as it employs the services of theology, which as everyone knows is small and ugly and must be kept out of sight.

Historical Materialism (in theory) :-)

-Men enter into "relations of production" based on the stage of material production.

-This creates the total economic structure of society and laws are made based on this foundation.

-This, in turn, shapes the consciousness of men.

-At some point, the material productive forces causes things to change

-Then there is a revolution!

Historical Materialism (in practice) :-(

-NO to Soviet 'diamat' (dialectical materialism)

-YES to Trotsky and anti-Stalinists

-NO to Soviet police practices that looked just like fascist police.

-YES to USSR remaining anti-fascist ally

-NO, NO, NO! TO MOLOTOV-RIBBENTROP PACT, which was a non-aggression treaty between the Soviets (USSR) and the Fascists (Germany) in August 1939.

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