Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:54:22.808Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Exile Boundary Crossing: Aesthetic Objects and Perception in the Works of Walter Benjamin and María Zambrano

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2020

Karolina Enquist Källgren*
Affiliation:
Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. Email: [email protected]

Abstract

In the late works of María Zambrano (1904–1991), the author presents exile as a particular kind of experience, by which the structure and arquitectonics of human existence become visible. Similarly, in his posthumously published Passagen-Werk Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) introduces the flanêur – which he repeatedly likens to the immigrant or exile – as the representation of a particular kind of gaze, disclosing the arquitectonics and structure of capitalist bourgeois society. In this article, I suggest that the notions of figura and dialektisches Bild from the authors’ respective works are connected to an exile mode of perception, centred on the problem of translatability across cultural and linguistic borders. I believe that the similarities between the two authors can be explained by a reading which contextualizes them as a political generation with a shared experience of exilic boundary-crossing.

Type
Focus: Thinking Beyond Europe’s Cultural Borders
Copyright
© 2020 Academia Europaea

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Guest Editor: Mats Andrén

References

Abel, J (2014) Walter Benjamins Übersetzungsästhetik, ‘Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers’ im Kontext von Benjamins Frühwerk und seiner Zeit. Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag.Google Scholar
Apter, E (2013) Against World Literature, On the Politics of Untranslatability. London/New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Bassnet, S (1980) Translation Studies. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W (1923) Die Aufgabe des ûbersetzers. Charles Baudelaire, tableaux parisiens. Heidelberg: Verlag von Richard Weiβbach.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W (1968a) The Storyteller. In Arendt, H (ed.), Illuminations. New York: Schocken Books.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W (1968b) The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. In Arendt, H (ed.), Illuminations. New York: Schocken Books.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W (1982a) Das Passagen-Werk . In Tiedemann, R (ed.), Gesammelte Schriften I. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W (1982b) Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit. In Tiedemann, R (ed.), Gesammelte Schriften I. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W (1982c) Über den Begriff der Geschichte. In Tiedemann, R (ed.), Gesammelte Schriften I. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W (1985) Gesammelte Schriften VI. Tiedemann, R (ed.). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W (1991a) Der Erzähler. In Tiedemann, R (ed.), Gesammelte Schriften II. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, pp. 438465.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W (1991b) Über das Programm dem Kommenden Philosophie. In Tiedemann, R (ed.), Gesammelte Schriften II. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, pp. 157171.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W (1999) The Arcades Project. Eiland, H and Jennings, MW (eds). Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W (2003) Curriculum Vitae VI: Dr. Walter Benjamin. In Jennings, MW and Eiland, H (eds), Selected Writings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 382.Google Scholar
Buck-Morss, S (2006) The flaneûr, the sandwichman and the whore: the politics of loitering. In Hansen, B (ed.), Walter Benjamin and the Arcads Project. London/New York: Bloomsbury, pp. 3365.Google Scholar
Deuber-Mankowsky, A (2005) Hanging over the abyss: on the relation of knowledge and experience in Hermann Cohen and Walter Benjamin. In Munk, R (ed.), Hermann Cohen’s Critical Idealism. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 161192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eiland, H and Jennings, MW (2014) Walter Benjamin, a Critical Life, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Enquist Källgren, K (2017) Exile as context, a broader perspective on the circulation of knowledge. Lychnos 1, 5074.Google Scholar
Fenoy Gutiérrez, S (2008) La Obra inédita de María Zambrano. Barcelona: Balmes Innova.Google Scholar
Hutton, PH (2008) Walter Benjamin on the French Exile of German Men of Letters. Proceedings of the Western Society for French Philosophy 36, 235248.Google Scholar
Jennings, MW (1987) Dialectical Images: Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Literary Criticism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Jennings, MW (2013) Walter Benjamin, Sigfried Kracauer and Weimar criticism. In Gordon, PE and McCormick, JP (eds), Weimar Thought, a Contested Legacy. Princeton New Jersey: Princeton University Press, pp. 203219.Google Scholar
Marías, J (1960) Ortega I – circumstancia y vocación. Madrid: Revista de Occidente.Google Scholar
Soto Carrasco, D (2010) Historia y violencia, Walter Benjamin y María Zambrano. Thémata, Revista de Filosofía 43, 417434.Google Scholar
Vilarós, T (2010) Modernidad nuclear, Dalí, Benjamin, Zambrano. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 11(3-4), 315328. https://doi.org/10.1080/14636204.2010.546615 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zambrano, M (1936) La salvación del individuo en Espinosa. Cuadernos de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras 3, 5969.Google Scholar
Zambrano, M (2011a) El Hombre y lo divino. In Morenos Sanz, J (ed.), Obras completas III. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg.Google Scholar
Zambrano, M (2011b) El Sueño Creador. In Morenos Sanz, J (ed.), Obras completas III. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg.Google Scholar
Zambrano, M (2015a) Horizontes del liberalismo. In Morenos Sanz, J (ed.), Obras completas I. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg.Google Scholar
Zambrano, M (2015b) Poesía y revolución, El Hombre y el trabajo de Arturo Serrano Plaja. In Morenos Sanz, J (ed.), Obras completas I. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg, pp. 262274.Google Scholar
Zambrano, M (2016) La agonía de Europa. In Moreno Sanz, J (ed.), Obras Completas II. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg.Google Scholar
Zambrano, M (2018) Obras Completas IV: I. Moreno Sanz J (ed.). Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg.Google Scholar
Zambrano, M (2019a) Obras Completas IV: II. Moreno Sanz J (ed.). Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg.Google Scholar
Zambrano, M (2019b) Algunos lugares de la pintura. In Moreno Sanz, J (ed.), Obras Completas IV: II. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg.Google Scholar
Zambrano, M (2019c) Los Bienaventurados. In Moreno Sanz, J (ed.), Obras Completas IV: II. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg.Google Scholar
Zambrano, M (2019d) ’Speculum Justiciae’ M-157bis in the archive of the Fundación María Zambrano. Published in Moreno Sanz, J (ed.), Obras Completas IV: II. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg, pp. 469472.Google Scholar