Rolf J. Goebel Libri

Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) has emerged as one of the leading cultural critics of the twentieth century. His work encompasses aesthetics, metaphysical language and narrative theories, German literary history, philosophies of history, the intersection of Marxism and Messianic thought, urban topography, and the development of photography and film. Benjamin defined the task of the critic as one that blasts endangered moments of the past out of the continuum of history so that they attain new significance. This volume of new essays employs this principle of actualization as its methodological program in offering a new advanced introduction to Benjamin's own work. The essays analyze Benjamin's central texts, themes, terminologies, and genres in their original contexts while simultaneously situating them in new parameters, such as contemporary media, memory culture, constructions of gender, postcoloniality, and theories of urban topographies. The Companion brings together an international group of established and emerging scholars to explicate Benjamin's actuality from a multidisciplinary perspective. Designed for audiences interested in literary criticism, cultural studies, and neighboring disciplines, the volume serves as a stimulus for new debates about Benjamin's intellectual legacy today. Contributors: Dominik Finkelde, Wolfgang Bock, Bernd Witte, Lutz Koepnick, Eric Jarosinski, Karl Ivan Solibakke, Marc de Wilde, Vivian Liska, Willi Bolle, Dianne Chisholm, Adrian Daub. Rolf J. Goebel is Professor of German at the University of Alabama in Huntsville

Kafka's interest in and use of China establish him as a principal commentator in Western discourse on the Orient.Goebel studies four representative works by Kafka that explore the problems of the Western representation of the his 'Description of a Struggle'; several letters to Felice Bauer, offering an interpretation of Chinese poetry in connection with the conflict between writing and Kafka's love for Felice; the canonical story 'The Great Wall of China', parodically appropriating sterotypes of China's stagnant history and authoritarian emperors for a refutation of colonialist ideas of progress; and the sequel 'An Old Manuscript', dramatising China's invasion by foreign powers and the breakdown of crosscultural communication. Elucidating these themes from a broadly comparative perspective, Goebel shows Kafka to be one of German modernism's most intriguing and self-reflective writers on the Orient.ROLF J. GOEBEL is Professor of German at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Benjamins Gegenwartspotenzial entfaltet sich im literarisch-kritischen Diskurs über das Verhältnis zwischen moderner europäischer Metropole und (post-)kolonialen Räumen. Goebels Studie beleuchtet drei eng verbundene Aspekte: die Rezeption von Benjamins Ideen in aktuellen postkolonialen Theorien, die Auseinandersetzung mit der 'Fremde' und der Kolonialproblematik in seinen Texten sowie die Übertragung der Figur des Flaneurs von der europäischen Metropole nach Japan. Diese Übertragung erfolgt in einem Kontext, der durch Spannungen zwischen Eurozentrismus und indigener Authentizität sowie westlicher Kulturhegemonie und internationaler Postmoderne geprägt ist. Benjamin wird in diesem Licht als zentraler Akteur in den gegenwärtigen Debatten zur Überschneidung von Literatur und Ethnologie, zur Selbstrepräsentation globaler Großstädte und zur Theorie interkultureller Übersetzung betrachtet. Die Studie gliedert sich in mehrere Kapitel, die sich mit verschiedenen Aspekten der Flanerie und des Kultur-Kolonialismus beschäftigen und dabei wichtige literarische Figuren und Theoretiker einbeziehen. Die Schlussbemerkung sowie das Literaturverzeichnis und Register runden die Analyse ab.