Benjamin's Passages

Alexander Gelley is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine.

• Preface Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Contexts of the Aesthetic 2. Epigones in the House of Language: Benjamin on Kraus 3. Benjamin on Atget: Empty Streets and the Fading of Aura 4. Entering the Passagen 5. Citation as Incitation: The Political Agenda of the Passagenarbeit 6. Messianism, "Weak" and Otherwise 7. Forgetting, Dreaming, Awakening Works Cited Index

"Alex Gelley's interpretation of the Passagenwerk is the work of a lifetime concentrated as a gem. While commentaries were multiplying at exponential rate, he kept meditating and researching. The result is a unique resurrection of Benjamin's practice of "puzzling the world together", around the antithetic themes of liberating the powers of dream and anticipating the day of awakening. Whoever thought to have understood Benjamin should pause and read Gelley first." -- -Etienne Balibar author of Equaliberty "Alexander Gelley's book offers an extremely subtle and persuasive reading of Benjamin's later work, fully attentive to its fragmentary nature but also deftly linking it to all of the writer's continuing philosophical preoccupations. The study does not situate Benjamin narrowly within his own historical time, but neither does it fold him into a single later view. What Gelley traces for us are the work's own invitations to its afterlife, and in this context he writes strikingly of Benjamin's dream of 'situating phenomena in the light of their historical lapse'. Benjamin speaks of 'the whole contradictory foundation' of his convictions, and this book allows us to begin to grasp that foundation without betraying any of its contradictions." -- -Michael Wood Princeton University "A major achievement, 'Benjamin's Passages' is an invaluable contribution to Benjamin studies and all the fields connected with it. " -- -Michael G. Levine Rutgers University