SPACES AND SPATIALITY International Walter Benjamin Society Conference The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and Tel-Aviv University 13-16 December 2015 Organizers: Eli Friedländer, Yoav Rinon, Ilit Ferber, Vivian Liska Keynote Speakers: Prof. Georges Didi-Huberman (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales Paris), Prof. Eva Geulen (Göethe Universität, Frankfurt) and Prof. Michael Jennings (Princeton University). For Walter Benjamin, space is a seminal notion with broad and multifaceted manifestations in his writing. Space rarely appears there as an independent concept, but is rather bound up with language, temporality, memory, writing, image, and experience. Space thus emerges not only as one of Benjamin's most prominent topics (such as his discussions of concrete places like Berlin, Moscow, and Naples), but also as part of the very infrastructure of his thought. Space intersects with temporality and history, as is evident in Benjamin's conceptualization of Paris as the capital of the 19th century as well as in his detailed discussion of the bourgeois interiors of Berlin at the turn of the twentieth century. Spatiality is a fundamental idea informing Benjamin s conceptualization of border, threshold, and limit and their literal and metaphoric implications; it has a crucial function in Benjamin's conceptualization of the dialectical image and its temporal as well as linguistic configurations. In exploring space and spatiality as subject matter and conceptual structure of Benjamin s thought, this conference aims to enhance the engagement with and understanding of a central aspect of Benjamin s oeuvre as well as its continuous relevance for our time. Proposals may address the following topics: 1. Benjamin s Cities Session organizers: Richard I. Cohen (The Hebrew University, Jerusalem) and Bernd Witte, (Heinrich Heine Universität, Düsseldorf) 1
Much of Benjamin s writing is related to places, especially cities. The central case is no doubt his monumental study of the Parisian arcades, but he also produced important city images of Berlin, Moscow, Naples, Marseille, and a host of smaller cities. Why does the urban space interest Benjamin so much, and how does it operate in his writings? Is there an essential difference between the writing of an urban space and writings which take either human beings or objects as their primary focus? What are the difficulties in turning an environment into an object of (intentional) consciousness? In what sense is the experience of the city reflected in Benjamin's writings, and how is it expressed in his mode of writing? In what way is Benjamin's Berlin Childhood different from his other writings about cities, and what connection does it reveal between memory and space? Are there essential differences between the cities Benjamin wrote about, and what is the nature of these differences? This section seeks to explore these issues as well as other questions regarding Benjamin's concern with cities, urban experience, and modernity. 2. Space and Time Session organizers: Andrew Benjamin (Monash University, Melbourne) and Sigrid Weigel (Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Berlin) Benjamin was concerned not only with questions of space and of history, but also with the complex interconnection between the two. His thought, therefore, brings the spatial and the temporal together in explosive configurations and explores the way different spatial models open new perspectives onto time and history. Instances of Benjamin's spatialization of time can be found, for example, in his idea of the return of history to the setting (in the discussion of the Baroque Trauerspiel), his discussion of the relationship between nature and history, or in the monadic construction of history. At the same time, however, Benjamin warns us against the inherently problematic aspects of certain common forms of the spatialization of time. His critique of the historicist s practice of placing events in a homogeneous temporal continuum (which he opposes to the (equally spatial ) notion of the constellation of past and present) offers only one example. Why is it important for Benjamin to bring together the spatial and temporal? How do these two dimensions of experience operate in his philosophy of history? Is there a way to trace Benjamin's preoccupation with the relation between space and time to his attempts to re-think some crucial moments in the history of philosophy (Leibniz, Hegel, Marx.)? This section seeks to explore these questions as well as other 2
epistemological, political and social - aspects of Benjamin's problematization of the temporal-spatial encounter. 3. The History of a Place the Biography of an Individual Session organizers: Yoav Rinon (The Hebrew University, Jerusalem) and Nadine Werner (Walter Benjamin Archive, Academy of Arts, Berlin) A connection between the biographical specificity of an individual and the public dimension of place structures Benjamin s Berlin Childhood around 1900. But it is no less important in his writings on Baudelaire, which relate the figure of the poet to the presence of the city (as in Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire ) and Goethe, which trace the descent of the properly human into mythic nature. One can find a similar connection between individual and place in the Arcades Project, the Moscow Diary and in his explorations of Naples and Ibiza. What does it mean to be a subject constituted by a place, and how can the attempt to give expression to a place be considered a project of self-understanding? What light is shed on questions of modernity by the encounters between individual and space? Does place operate as a focal point for the individual, or is it the other way around? Can we think, in light of Benjamin's writings, of a biography of a place or a space of an individual? This section seeks to explore questions of individuality, history, and space through Benjamin's productive interconnection of history and biography, public and private space. Topics to be addressed include questions regarding the link of individual and collective identity to locality, territory, and the genius loci. 4. Dream Locales Dream Space Dream Configuration Session organizers: Galili Shahar (Tel Aviv University) and Itta Shedletzky (The Hebrew University, Jerusalem) Benjamin s appreciation of Aragon s Le Paysan de Paris stems in large part from Aragon s depiction of the Passage de l Opera as a dreamscape. This relation between dream configuration and the depiction of places is for him not limited to surrealism, but figures as a dimension of any consideration of a city. It is precisely the spatiality of the dream that is an important prerequisite to a cognitive and political awakening. Is it possible to think here of certain phenomenological characteristics of dream experience (such as the sense that the 3
dream has no exterior), or of other spatial characteristics of the dream (nearness and distance, disorientation in a familiar space)? What is the possible link between Benjamin's dream-space and Freud's theory of dreams? Does Benjamin provide a challenge to the psychoanalytic account of dreams, or does he rather follow its outlines? How does Benjamin link the idea of dream-space and his thoughts about history? This section will be devoted to the development of these questions and other explorations focusing on Benjamin's dream theory, especially its relation to his ideas of space, spatiality, and the relation between the temporal and spatial. 5. Jewish Spaces/ Judaism and Spatiality Session organizers: Vivian Liska (University of Antwerp and The Hebrew University, Jerusalem) and Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin (Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva) Spatial characteristics permeate the Jewish motifs in Benjamin s writings. Allusions to places, emplacement, territory and realms range from his early references to Biblical scriptures (Paradise, Babel) via Cabbalistic and Messianic concepts (Sh virat Hakelim, [the Breaking of the Vessels]) up to his reflections on Zionism throughout his correspondence with his friends, particularly Gershom Scholem. In his letters to the latter, Benjamin repeatedly confronts Judaism as a metaphysical tradition with Zionism s territorial claims. Similarly, in his account of Kafka's oeuvre, Benjamin invokes the figure of ellipsis as a spatial metaphor defining the tension between the mystical tradition and cosmopolitan modernity. Participants in this section are invited to reflect upon the various manifestations of space and spatiality related to the Jewish dimension of Benjamin s writings. 6. Dwelling and Threshold Session organizers: Steven Aschheim, Emeritus Professor (The Hebrew University, Jerusalem) and Joseph Mali (Tel Aviv University) Benjamin once referred to dwelling as my favorite topic. His concern with Passagen, the arcades that are at once passageways and static spaces, exteriors and interiors, can stand for a broader involvement with localities which are transitional or simply outside the dwelling place itself: thresholds, boundaries, hallways, loggias, passages, roofs, balconies. Thresholds 4
represent boundary lines between parts of the city, between different temporal dimensions, between individual and space, dream and awakening, the visual and the sonic, as well as the fundamental boundary between internal and external in the Berlin apartment at the turn of the century. The human body, too, has thresholds such as the ones separating internal and external experience, mind and body, life and death. This section will discuss these borderlines and thresholds and explore the uses Benjamin makes of them in the various contexts of the human body, domesticity, urban space, time, and history. 7. Spatial Figures of Thinking Session organizers: Birgit Erdle (The Hebrew University, Jerusalem) and Eli Friedländer (Tel Aviv University) Benjamin s writing offers some of the most powerful figures for the characterization of thinking, writing, and truth. Significantly, many of these are essentially spatial. One could start with the very centrality of the image (the thought-image [Denkbild] or the dialectical image) and its relation to the constellation, or with the figure of the whirlpool, a spatial figure for a temporal term, namely origin. Other important figures include the monad, which foreshortens immense temporal dimensions and concentrates them. Why does Benjamin turn to space in order to characterize thinking? Why is philosophical thought formed in terms of a detour (Umweg)? Do these figures diminish the temporal characterization of truth, or do they give it, perhaps, a distinct spatio-temporal expression? This section will focus on the various spatial figures, metaphors, and images to which Benjamin turns and will explore their structure and implications. 8. The Political Dimensions of Space Session organizers: Moshe Zuckerman (Tel Aviv University) and Irving Wohlfarth (Paris) Benjamin's writings about space and spatial images are inevitably bound up with vast political implications. The notion of the border, a salient feature of Benjamin's detailed discussion of 19th-century Paris, recurs in his oeuvre in different contexts with varied political implications: Whether focusing on the authorities' indefatigable attempts to number the houses of a resisting Paris proletariat or the separation of "high" and "low" loci 5
in the metropolis, or on Haussman s construction of the boulevards against barricade tactics, Benjamin draws our hermeneutic attention to the political aspects of space. This panel will concentrate on the interrelationship between space and politics in Benjamin's thinking, specifically the role and the dissolution of borders and limits in thinking the political. It will engage the complex reciprocity of the national and the personal in the way place is constitutive of identity, and finally, the notion of exile and its implications for the character of Benjamin s thinking. The panel will also explore Benjamin s reflections on Europe particularly Mitteleuropa - the United States and Palestine as well as questions of crisis, violence and sovereignty linked to territoriality. Special attention will be given to the potential contemporary implications of Benjamin's conceptualizations and perceptions of the political aspects of space here and now, with particular attention to examining its bearing on the territorial dimensions of the political conflict in the place in which the conference will be held. The conference will include a Round Table on the topic: What does it mean to discuss Walter Benjamin in Israel today? Participants will be announced shortly. Talks (and proposals) can be presented in German or in English. Proposals of max. 200 words should be sent before 15 February 2015 to the following email address: benjamin2015meeting@gmail.com Please mention your name, affiliation and the section in which you would like to present your paper. (Please add a ranking of up to three possible sections in which you think your presentation could fit). The talks should not exceed 20 minutes to leave room for discussion.you can expect a reply by 15 March 2015. Participants will cover their own travel expenses and accommodation. A choice of hotels, information concerning the means of transportation between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem as well as excursions and additional activities will be sent to the selected participants. 6