A weak Messianic power : figures of a time to come in Benjamin, Derrida, and Celan /
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| Author / Creator: | Levine, Michael G. |
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| Edition: | First edition. |
| Imprint: | New York : Fordham University Press, 2014. |
| Description: | xii, 177 pages ; 24 cm |
| Language: | English |
| Subject: | |
| Format: | Print Book |
| URL for this record: | http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/9842490 |
| Summary: | In his famous theses on the philosophy of history, Benjamin writes: "We have been endowed with a weak messianic power to which the past has a claim." This claim addresses us not just from the past but from what will have belonged to it only as a missed possibility and unrealized potential. For Benajmin, as for Celan and Derrida, what has never been actualized remains with us, not as a lingering echo but as a secretly insistent appeal. Because such appeals do not pass through normal channels of communication, they require a special attunement, perhaps even a mode of unconscious receptivity. Levine examines the ways in which this attunement is cultivated in Benjamin's philosophical, autobiographical, and photohistorical writings; Celan's poetry and poetological addresses; and Derrida's writings on Celan. |
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| Physical Description: | xii, 177 pages ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780823255108 0823255107 9780823255115 0823255115 |
