This is the first comprehensive introduction to Benjamin's unfinished "Arcades Project" - one of the most significant cultural documents of the Weimar Republic and Nazi era. Walter Benjamin's unfinished "Arcades Project" has had a remarkable impact on present-day cultural theory, urban studies, cultural studies and literary interpretation. Originally designed as a panoramic study chronicling the rise and decline of the Parisian shopping arcades, Benjamin's work combines imaginative peregrinations through the changing city-scape of nineteenth-century Paris with passages that read like a blueprint for a new cultural theory of modernity. "Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project" provides the first comprehensive introduction to this extraordinary work accessible to English-language readers. The diverse range of issues explored include the fl and No. 226; neur, the physiognomy of ruins, the dialectical image, and modernity and architecture. The contributors include: Susan Buck-Morss, Stanley Cavell, Brigid Doherty, Stathis Gourgouris, Barbara Johnson, Esther Leslie, Gerhard Richter, Beatrice Hanssen, Detlef Mertins, Elissa Marder, Tyrus Miller, Max Pensky, and Irving Wohlfarth.

Author Biography

Beatrice Hanssen is Professor of Germanic and Slavic Languages, University of Georgia, USA.