International Walter Benjamin Society Conference 2017

24 September 2017 to 27 September 2017
Date: 
Sunday 24 - Wednesday 27 September 2017
Venue: 
Worcester College
Booking: 
http://www.oxforduniversitystores.co.uk/conferences-events/modern-languages/mode…

‘Walter Benjamin and Method’

“Walter Benjamin and Method: Re-thinking the Legacy of the Frankfurt School”
“Walter Benjamins Methoden: Das Vermächtnis der Frankfurter Schule im heutigen Kontext”

The next conference of the International Walter Benjamin Society will be held in Oxford at Worcester College and the Taylorian Institute on 24th-27th September 2017. To coincide with the conference, there will be a small exhibition at the Bodleian Library on the theme of “Reading with Benjamin,” which will include Kafka manuscripts, and other Benjamin-related rarities.

Booking Deadline: 10th September 2017

Sunday 24th September

16.00-18.30 Registration (Worcester College cloisters)
18.30-19.00 Drinks (Worcester College cloisters)
19.00-20.00 Informal Dinner (Worcester College)

Monday 25th September

8.30-9.00 Registration and Coffee (Worcester College cloisters)
9.00-9.30 Welcome: ‘Benjamin and Method’ (Taylor Institution Main Hall)
9.30-10.15 Round Table: Werner Hamacher in Memoriam (Taylor Institution Main Hall)
10.30-12.00 Parallel Sessions 1 (Worcester College)

Benjamin and the Study of Images and Imaging (1): Bodily Presences and Absences
Coordinators: Prof. Andrew Webber and Dr. Caroline Sauter
  1. Dr. Philipp Ekardt (Warburg Institute, The University of London)
    ‘Returns to the Belle Époque (Fashion and the Dialectical Image: Temporal Structure, Manifest Content)’
  2. Dr. Ernest Schonfield (University of Glasgow)
    ‘The Agonal Moment: Benjamin on Eduard Fuchs and Honoré Daumier’
  3. Dr. Dana MacFarlane (University of Edinburgh)
    ‘Benjamin’s interest in the temporal and spatial characteristics of the image is manifest … ’ [title tbc]

Benjamin’s Writings: Methodology, Archive, Edition (1):
Coordinators: Prof. Carolin Duttlinger and Dr. Erdmut Wizisla
  1. Prof. Dr. Peter König (Universität Heidelberg)
    ‘Benjamins “dialektische” Methode’
  2. Caroline Adler (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
    ‘“[…] daß jede prinzipielle allgemeine Untersuchung sofort wieder einen ihr eigenen Gegenstand findet”: Literarische Methode in Walter Benjamins “Moskau”-Aufsatz’
  3. Dr. Kyung-Ho Cha (Universität Bayreuth)
    ‘Die “Methode der Atomzertrümmerung”: Walter Benjamins Physik der Geschichte im Zeitalter der Atomforschung’

Benjamin Between Theology and Philosophy (1): Messianism
Coordinators: Prof. Andrew Benjamin and Dr. Ilit Ferber
  1. Prof. Mauro Ponzi (Sapienza Università di Roma)
    ‘Messianism, materialism and nihilism in Benjamin’s Concept of History’
  2. Maria João Cantinho (Independent Scholar)
    ‘The Messianism or the History as Dissidence in the Work of Walter Benjamin’
  3. Dr. Dr. Federico Dal Bo (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
    ‘Waiting for the Messiah or enduring the Katechon?: On Agamben’s negotiation between Paul, Benjamin, and Schmitt’
12.00-12.45 Lunch (Worcester College)
13.30-15.00 Parallel Sessions 2 (Worcester College)

Benjamin and the Study of Images and Imaging (2): Composition with Found Objects
Coordinators: Prof. Andrew Webber and Dr. Caroline Sauter
  1. Dr. Maria Teresa Costa (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck Institut)
    ‘Lesbarkeit als epistemologisches Paradigma für mentale und materielle Bilder’
  2. Thomas Lindenberg (Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig)
    ‘The Readymade as a Work of Art at the Age of Technological Reproduction: Walter Benjamin and the Struggle Within the Conditions of Production [in German]’
  3. Irene Lehmann (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg)
    ’Zeitkern, ästhetische und politische Erfahrung bei Benjamin und Nono’

Benjamin and the Study of the Human (1):
Coordinators: Prof. Ben Morgan and Prof. Mike Jennings
  1. Prof. emerit. Clemens-Carl Härle (Università degli studi di Siena)
    ‘Protomimesis’
  2. Dennis Johannssen (Brown University)
    ‘The Highest Spheres of Language, Dissolving Human Nature: Benjamin’s “Outline of the Psychophysical Problem”’
  3. Dr. María Mercedes Andrade (Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá)
    ‘Beyond the Individual in Benjamin’s Kindheitsbuch’

Benjamin’s Writings: Methodology, Archive, Edition (2):
Coordinators: Prof. Carolin Duttlinger and Dr. Erdmut Wizisla
  1. Anja Nowak (University of British Columbia)
    ‘Walter Benjamins Rundfunkarbeiten: Medienspezifik und Kritische Edition’
  2. Dr. Gregor Babelotzky (University of Cambridge)
    ‘Geistesgegenwart’: Zur ‘prompten’ Sprache der Einbahnstraße
  3. Dr. Clara Masnatta (Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Berlin)
    ‘Walter Benjamin and Gisèle Freund’s Histories of Photography: The Reception Story of a Friendship’

Benjamin Between Theology and Philosophy (2): Remembrance and Prophecy
Coordinators: Prof. Andrew Benjamin and Dr. Ilit Ferber
  1. Dr. Stefano Marchesoni (Independent Scholar)
    ‘Remembrance As A Virtual Threshold: On the origin of Walter Benjamin’s method’
  2. Prof. James Martel (San Francisco State University)
    ‘What kind of prophet doesn’t believe in the future? Walter Benjamin on prophecy, teleology and fate’
  3. Dr. Johannes Riedner (Independent Scholar)
    ‘Kritische Epistemologie und historische Methode’
15.00-15.30 Coffee (Worcester College)
15.30-17.00 Parallel Sessions 3 (Worcester College)

Benjamin and Reading (1):
Coordinators: Prof. Hindy Najman and Prof. Daniel Weidner
  1. Dr Deirdre Daly (Goldsmiths, University of London)
    Benjamin’s Concept of the Criticism of Philosophy
  2. Jeremy Arnott (University of Western Ontario)
    ‘The Correspondence(s) of Benjamin and Adorno’
  3. Frank Voigt (Universität Potsdam)
    ‘Walter Benjamins und Leo Löwenthals Literatursoziologie’

Benjamin and the Study of the Human (2):
Coordinator: Coordinators: Prof. Ben Morgan and Prof. Mike Jennings
  1. Dr. Nélio Conceição (IFILNOVA/New University of Lisbon Philosophy Institute)
    ‘The art of practicing and the practice of philosophy’
  2. Sophia Schalt (Technische Universität Berlin)
    ‘Moderne Biosphäre: Netz’
  3. Dr. Daniel Mourenza-Urbina (Aston University, Birmingham)
    ‘Walter Benjamin on Mickey Mouse, Film Aesthetics and Anthropological Materialism’

Benjamin and Political Method (1):
Coordinators: Dr. Julia Ng and Prof. Yoav Rinon
  1. Nikolaos Tzanakis Papadakis (Freie Universtität Berlin)
    ‘“Leviathan fehlt!”: Die Rezeption von Benjamins Trauerspielbuch durch Schmitt’
  2. Dr. Hjalmar Falk (Göteborgs Universitet/University of Oxford)
    ‘Sovereign Symbolkraft: The politics of myth and allegory in Schmitt and Benjamin’

Benjamin Between Theology and Philosophy (3): Political Theology and the Image
Coordinators: Prof. Andrew Benjamin and Dr. Ilit Ferber
  1. Dr. Yu-jin Chang (Emerson College, Boston)
    ‘Benjamin’s “Political Theology”’
  2. Ido Ben Harush (Tel Aviv University)
    ‘The Concept of Gesture in Walter Benjamin- Between Political Criticism and Theology’
  3. Dr. Massimiliano De Villa (Istituto Italiano di Studi Germanici, Rome)
    ‘Language and History, Bilderlos: from Benjamin to Adorno’
17.15-18.30 Keynote Lecture (Taylor Institution Main Hall)
Prof. Peter Fenves (Northwestern University): ‘Force and Messianicity’
18.45-20.15 Dinner at My Sichuan
20.30-21.30 Performance “The Late Walter Benjamin” (Queen’s College, Shulman Auditorium)

Tuesday 26th September

9.00-10.30 Parallel Sessions 4 (Worcester College)

Benjamin and the Study of Images and Imaging (3): Ideas of and in Time
Coordinators: Prof. Andrew Webber and Dr. Caroline Sauter
  1. Prof. Dr. Christine Kirchhoff (International Psychoanalytic University Berlin)
    ‘Nachträglichkeit und Dialektik im Stillstand: Zeit und Bild bei Freud und Benjamin’
  2. Moriz Stangl (Universität Tübingen)
    ‘Das Denkbild als Ideenverflechtung. Eine Kolektüre zweier Begriffe bei Platon und Benjamin’
  3. Dr Juliane Prade-Weiss (Yale)
    ‘Liquidation im Bild: Zur Artikulation von Geshichte’

Benjamin’s Writings: Methodology, Archive, Edition (3):
Coordinators: Prof. Carolin Duttlinger and Dr. Erdmut Wizisla
  1. Ursula Marx (Walter-Benjamin-Archiv, Berlin)
    ‘“Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften” neu ediert: Ein Werkstattbericht’
  2. Dr. Nadine Werner (Walter-Benjamin-Archiv, Berlin)
    ‘Strenge in der Konzeption, Beweglichkeit im Schreiben: Zur Edition der Berliner Chronik und Berliner Kindheit um neunzehnhundert’
  3. Dr. Alexandra Richter (Universität Rouen/Walter-Benjamin-Archiv Berlin)
    ‘Benjamins Kafka’

Benjamin and Reading (2):
Coordinators: Prof. Hindy Najman and Prof. Daniel Weidner
  1. Damiano Roberi (University of Turin)
    ‘Anything Benjaminian goes? Anarchic notes on method’
  2. Ron Sadan (Princeton University)
    ‘“Eccentric Figurativeness.” Toward Reading Benjamin’s Arcades Manuscripts’
  3. Sarah Stoll (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich)
    ‘Bühnenspiel der Schrift. Walter Benjamin als Leser des Gestischen’

Benjamin and Political Method (2):
Coordinators: Dr. Julia Ng and Prof. Yoav Rinon
  1. Prof. Michael Newman (Goldsmiths)
    ‘Odradek and the rethinking of political method in the work of art’
  2. Prof. Klaus Mladek (Dartmouth College)
    ‘Benjamin’s Theater of Revolution’
  3. Maria Chehonadskih (Kingston University London)
    ‘Walter Benjamin and His Soviet Encounters: An Unequal Exchange?’
10.30-11.00 Coffee (Worcester College)
11.00-12.30 Parallel Sessions 5 (Worcester College)

Benjamin and the Study of Images and Imaging (4): Moving into and around Paintings
Coordinators: Prof. Andrew Webber and Dr. Caroline Sauter
  1. Jan Cao (Northwestern University, Evanston)
    ‘Walter Benjamin’s Chinese Painter: A Portal’
  2. Sha Li (Beijing Normal University)
    ‘Aura — Pure Seeing - Qiyun. Benjamin’s Aesthetics Encounters an Ancient Chinese Art Concept’
  3. 2. Vittoria Fallanca (University of Oxford)
    ‘Benjaminian Allegory in A Dance to the Music of Time’

Benjamin’s Writings: Methodology, Archive, Edition (4): Trauerspiel
Coordinators: Prof. Carolin Duttlinger and Dr. Erdmut Wizisla
  1. Pauline Selbig (Cornell University)
    ‘Die Textgenese von Walter Benjamins Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels’
  2. David Pérez García (Universidad Pedagógica Nacional FUNESID Bogotá)
    ‘Curiosities Epistemological-Criticize: From Benjamin To Researching ‘

Benjamin and Reading (3):
Coordinators: Prof. Hindy Najman and Prof. Daniel Weidner
  1. Prof. Paulo Oneto (UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro)
    ‘The Question of Literalness in Walter Benjamin’s The Task of the Translator’
  2. Prof. Hyun Höchsmann (East China Normal University)
    ‘Walter Benjamin on Hölderlin’s “Poetic Cosmos”’

Benjamin and Political Method (3):
Coordinators: Dr. Julia Ng and Prof. Yoav Rinon
  1. Irem Tascioglu (Goldsmiths)
    ‘From Force of Law to Politics of Friendship: Derrida’s Reading of Benjamin’s Critique of Violence as a Challenge to Schmitt’s Topology of Exception’
  2. Dr. Antonio Roselli (Universität Paderborn)
    ‘“Subjektivität ohne Subjekt” – Das “Menschenrecht auf Armut” als Alternative zum Besitzdenken in der politischen Anthropologie Walter Benjamins’
12.30-13.15 Lunch (Worcester College)
13.30-15.00 Parallel Sessions 6 (Worcester College)

Benjamin and the Study of Images and Imaging (5): Thought Experiments: Leibniz, Marx, Adorno
Coordinators: Prof. Andrew Webber and Dr. Caroline Sauter
  1. Noa Levin (Kingston University London)
    ‘The Image as Abbreviation: Walter Benjamin on Mallarmé’s Poetic Monadology’
  2. Dr. Paul Flaig (University of St Andrew’s)
    ‘The Screwball Letters: Adorno, Benjamin and the Marx(ist) Brothers’
  3. Anat Messing Marcus (University of Cambridge)
    ‘The Image as Umweg: On Benjamin’s “Der Mond“’

Benjamin’s Writings: Methodology, Archive, Edition (5):
Coordinators: Prof. Carolin Duttlinger and Dr. Erdmut Wizisla
  1. Dr. Jaime Cuenca (University of Deusto, Bilbao)
    ‘The Mystery of the Undelivered Talk: “The Author as Producer” and its Writing Process’
  2. Dr. Thomas Regehly (Jüdische Volkshochschule Frankfurt a.M./Internationales Jacob-Böhme-Institut Görlitz)
    ‘Madness and Method: A Case study on Walter Benjamin’s “Pathological Library”’
  3. Dr. Dora Osborne (University of St Andrews)
    ‘Benjaminian Graphology: Between Klages and Benjamin in Per Leo’s Flut und Boden (2014)’

Benjamin and the Study of the Human (3):
Coordinators: Prof. Ben Morgan and Prof. Mike Jennings
  1. Prof. emerit. Freddie Rokem (Tel Aviv University)
    ‘Benjamin’s Clouds’
  2. Dr. Monika Tokarzewska (Nicolaus Kopernicus University in Toruń)
    ‘Der Sternenhimmel und sein Verschwinden. Benjamins Historisierung der menschlichen Kondition im Wechselbezug zwischen Weltall und Technik’
  3. Tom Vandeputte (Goldsmiths, University of London)
    Deutung and Bedeutbarkeit: On Benjamin’s early theory of reading

Benjamin and Reading (4):
Coordinators: Prof. Hindy Najman and Prof. Daniel Weidner
  1. Dr. Sergio Díaz-Luna (University of California, Davis)
    ‘Hopes of Walter Benjamin in Latin America’
  2. Dr. Jacob Bittner (Independent Scholar)
    ‘Benjamin and the Signaturlehre’
  3. Dr. Christoph Schmitt-Maaß (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich)
    ‘Genese der Genealogie: Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault und die Entzauberung der Geschichtswissenschaft’
15.00-15.30 Coffee (Worcester College)
15.30-17.00 Parallel Sessions 7 (Worcester College)

Benjamin and the Study of the Human (4):
Coordinators: Prof. Ben Morgan and Prof. Mike Jennings
  1. Prof. Brian Britt (Virginia Tech)
    ‘Walter Benjamin’s Humanities’
  2. Prof. Anthony Phelan (University of Oxford)
    ‘Benjamin’s recursive reading: modernism and eingreifendes Denken’
  3. Prof. Max Pensky (Binghamton University, SUNY)
    ‘Walter Benjamin’s Case Studies’

Benjamin Between Theology and Philosophy (4): Art and Transcendence
Coordinators: Prof. Andrew Benjamin and Dr. Ilit Ferber
  1. Dr. Fabrizio Desideri and Dr. Alice Barale (Università di Firenze)
    ‘Freedom to the spirits: Benjamin and Rang on Shakespeare and Trauerspiel’
  2. Dr. Gordon Finlayson (University of Sussex)
    ‘Kafka’s Odradek as a Symbol of Profane Transcendence in Benjamin and Adorno’
  3. Dr. Lucy Steeds (University of the Arts London)
    ‘Art and Theological Exhibitability over Religious Aura’
17.15-18.30 Keynote Lecture (Taylor Institution Main Hall)
Prof. Hindy Najman (University of Oxford): ‘Reading After Hope’
19.30-21.00 Conference Dinner (Worcester College)

Wednesday 27th September

9.00-10.00 Round Table (Taylor Institution Main Hall)
Rang’s ‘Deutsche Bauhütte’
10.00-10.30 Coffee (Worcester College)
10.30-12.00 Parallel Sessions 8 (Worcester College)

Benjamin and the Study of the Human (5):
Coordinators: Prof. Ben Morgan and Prof. Mike Jennings

 

  1. Daniel Kashi (Princeton University)
    ‘Zur Kritik der reinen Mitteln: Agambens Entdifferenzierung von Benjamins Begriffen’
  2. Dr. Benjamin Lewis Robinson (Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Berlin)
    ‘Notbremse: The Emergency is the Emergency’
  3. Manuela Sampaio de Mattos (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul)
    ‘Walter Benjamin and Jacques Lacan – an approximation through the concepts of threshold and transference’

Benjamin and Political Method (4):
Coordinators: Dr. Julia Ng and Prof. Yoav Rinon
  1. Marcus Quent (Universität der Künste Berlin)
    ‘Bildsprengung. Benjamins Anstiftung zum Ikonoklasmus / Image Blasting: Benjamin’s incitement to iconoclasm’
  2. Gregor Schäfer (Universität Basel)
    ‘Die Rettung dessen, was möglich gewesen sein wird. Zu Benjamins Methode der Idee in politischer Absicht’
  3. Dr. Tamara Tagliacozzo (Università di Roma Tre)
    ‘Die “Konstellation” des Kapitalismus zwischen Walter Benjamin und Max Weber / The “constellation” of capitalism. Benjamin with Weber.’

Benjamin Between Theology and Philosophy (5): Theology and Secularisation
Coordinators: Prof. Andrew Benjamin and Dr. Ilit Ferber
  1. Prof. Agata Bielik-Robson (University of Nottingham / Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw)
    ‘Liquid Theology: Benjamin’s Unders’
  2. Dr. Francisco Naishtat (CONICET/Universidad de Buenos Aires)
    ‘Theology as an Invisible Organon. The Use of Theology as a Grammar of Benjaminian Time’
  3. Prof. Kazushi Misaki (Jikei University, Tokyo)
    ‘Walter Benjamins Versuch der Säkularisierung der Theologie’

Benjamin and Reading (5):
Coordinators: Prof. Hindy Najman and Prof. Daniel Weidner
  1. Dr. Lucie Mercier (Kingston University London)
    ‘The Point of Indifference: Benjamin, Leibniz and Method’
  2. Prof. Erik Granly Jensen (University of Southern Denmark)
    ‘The Gesture of Inseparability. Walter Benjamin’s “Robert Walser” (1929)’
  3. Christopher Law (Goldsmiths)
    ‘Sexuality, Demonism and Ambiguity in Benjamin’s “Goethe’s Elective Affinities”’
12.00-12.45 Lunch (Worcester College)
13.00-14.00 IWBS AGM (Taylor Institution Main Hall)
14.00-15.00 Exhibition Visit ‘Benjamin’s Library’ (Bodleian Library)
15.15-16.45 Parallel Sessions 9 (Worcester College)

Benjamin and the Study of Images and Imaging (6): Intermedial Imaging
Coordinators: Prof. Andrew Webber and Dr. Caroline Sauter
  1. Caroline Lillian Schopp (University of Chicago / Freie Universität Berlin)
    ‘Kandinskys Bilder – Benjamin on Painting and Graphics’
  2. Kester Richardson (Queen Mary, University of London)
    ‘“Is it not a crazy idea to talk about a painter on the radio?”: Walter Benjamin’s Sound-images’
  3. Piotr Paszyński (University of Warsaw)
    ‘Tactile Character of Film — Walter Benjamin and Alois Riegl’

Benjamin’s Writings: Methodology, Archive, Edition (6):
Coordinators: Prof. Carolin Duttlinger and Dr. Erdmut Wizisla
  1. Paul Sharratt
    ‘Unpacking Walter Benjamin: Benjamin’s Articles for Die literarische Welt in Context’
  2. Prof. Didier A. Contadini (Università degli Studi di Milano)
    ‘Denkbild and dialektischen Bild. Two Critical Perspectives on Urban Space in Benjamin’s thought’
  3. Dr. Jill Weintroub and Prof. Noëleen Murray (University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg /Wits City Institute)
    ‘Reading Africa’s Arcade’

Benjamin Between Theology and Philosophy (6): Perception and Experience
Coordinators: Prof. Andrew Benjamin and Dr. Ilit Ferber
  1. Mauricio Gonzalez (Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt)
    ‘Walter Benjamin on canon and pure (apocalyptic) perception’
  2. Dr. Ori Rotlevy (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
    ‘From Doctrine of Modern Experience to the Tradition of the Oppressed’
16.45-17.15 Coffee (Worcester College)
17.15-18.00 Closing Remarks (Taylor Institution Main Hall)
19.00-20.30 Dinner at Jamie’s Italian
Worcester College
Walton Street
Oxford
OX1 2HB
United Kingdom
01865 278300
www.worc.ox.ac.uk
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