Walter Benjamin's Concept of the Image

Alison Ross is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow in Philosophy, Monash University, Australia. She has research interests in aesthetics, the history of modern philosophy and critical theory. She is the author of The Aesthetic Paths of Philosophy: Presentation in Kant, Heidegger, Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy.

• Introduction 1. Feeling 2. Form 3. Similitude 4. History 5. Image Conclusion

"One must admire the ambition and boldness of Ross's project. Her book sets an agenda for future scholarship ... The genuine value of Ross’s book is that she deflates the interpretations of Benjamin as someone who thinks in images and metaphors. Ross persuasively argues that Benjamin associated the image with myth in his early work. Her reading suggests, moreover, that one of Benjamin’s lifelong projects was to liberate consciousness from a state of mystification, or 'mythic' life." -- Paula Schwebel in Critical Horizons: A Journal of Philosophy and Social Theory"Ross’s argument is original and refreshing. It is masterful in its conceptual program, exegetical details, and argumentative force, and its polemical verve is gripping. By introducing the image (dialectical or otherwise) as the pivot of her investigation, she demonstrates a greater thematic continuity to Benjamin’s thought than is usually imagined – a continuity that forcefully underscores the dramatic fault-lines fissuring the entire corpus. Particularly notable is Ross’s reading of Benjamin’s early essay on Goethe’s Elective Affinities – a generally admired but oddly under-commented work. She brings out the fundamental importance of this essay to Benjamin’s entire project, and offers the most sustained reading in English that I’m aware of." -- Rebecca Comay, University of Toronto, Canada"Ross has written an informed and thorough treatise on Benjamin’s concept of the Image…the book provides insightful critique and commentary on both Benjamin and his critics." – Vladimir Rizov, Marx & Philosophy