Benjamin's -abilities

Samuel Weber

  • An Artforum Best Book of 2008
  • List of Abbreviations

    I Benjamin’s -abilities

  1. Introduction
  2. Prehistory: Kant, Hölderlin—et cetera
  3. Criticizability—Calculability
  4. Impart-ability: Language as Medium
  5. Translatability I: Following (Nachfolge)
  6. Translatability II: Afterlife
  7. Citability—of Gesture
  8. Ability and Style
  9. An Afterlife of -abilities: Derrida

    10. II Legibilities

  10. Genealogy of Modernity: History, Myth, and Allegory in Benjamin’s Origin of the German Mourning Play
  11. Awakening
  12. Taking Exception to Decision: Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt
  13. Violence and Gesture: Agamben Reading Benjamin Reading Kafka Reading Cervantes . . .
  14. Song and Glance: Walter Benjamin’s Secret Names (zugewandt—unverwandt)
  15. “Streets, Squares, Theaters”: A City on the Move—Walter Benjamin’s Paris
  16. God and the Devil—in Detail
  17. Closing the Net: “Capitalism as Religion” (Benjamin)
  18. The Ring as Trauerspiel: Reading Wagner with Benjamin and Derrida
  19. Reading Benjamin
  20. “Seagulls”
  • Appendix. Walter Benjamin’s “Seagulls”: A Translation
  • Notes
  • Acknowledgments
  • Index
  • Cover: Benjamin's -abilities
  • A photo of the author

Samuel Weber is Avalon Foundation Professor of Humanities at Northwestern University.