Howard Eiland

Bio: Howard Eiland is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Marxist philosophy & Deconstruction (building). The author has an hindex of 5, co-authored 13 publications receiving 3125 citations.

The Arcades Project

Abstract: Translators' Foreword Exposes "Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth Century" (1935) "Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century" (1939) Convolutes Overview First Sketches Early Drafts "Arcades" "The Arcades of Paris" "The Ring of Saturn" Addenda Expose of 1935, Early Version Materials for the Expose of 1935 Materials for "Arcades" "Dialectics at a Standstill," by Rolf Tiedemann "The Story of Old Benjamin," by Lisa Fittko Translators' Notes Guide to Names and Terms Index

Berlin childhood around 1900

Abstract: Translator's Foreword "Hope in the Past: On Walter Benjamin" by Peter Szondi Berlin Childhood around 1900: Final Version Loggias * Imperial Panorama * Victory Column * The Telephone * Butterfly Hunt * Tiergarten * Tardy Arrival * Boys' Books * Winter Morning * At the Corner of Steglitzer and Genthiner * Two Enigmas * Market Hall * The Fever * The Otter * Peacock Island and Glienicke * News of a Death * Blumeshof 12 * Winter Evening * Crooked Street * The Sock * The Mummerehlen * Hiding Places * A Ghost * A Christmas Angel * Misfortunes and Crimes * Colors * The Sewing Box * The Moon * Two Brass Bands * The Little Hunchback * The Carousel * Sexual Awakening From the 1932-1934 Version Departure and Return * The Larder * News of a Death * The Mummerehlen * Society * The Reading Box * Monkey Theater * School Library * New Companion of German Youth * The Desk * Cabinets * Beggars and Whores * The Moon Complete Table of Contents, 1932-1934 Version Notes Credits for Illustrations Index Illustrations Walter Benjamin and his brother Georg The Victory Column on Konigsplatz The goldfish pond in the Tiergarten Berlin's Tiergarten in winter Market hall on Magdeburger Platz Interior of a middle-class German home Courtyard on Fischerstrasse in Old Berlin

Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life

Abstract: Walter Benjamin is one of the twentieth century's most important intellectuals, and also one of its most elusive. His writings--mosaics incorporating philosophy, literary criticism, Marxist analysis, and a syncretistic theology--defy simple categorization. And his mobile, often improvised existence has proven irresistible to mythologizers. His writing career moved from the brilliant esotericism of his early writings through his emergence as a central voice in Weimar culture and on to the exile years, with its pioneering studies of modern media and the rise of urban commodity capitalism in Paris. That career was played out amid some of the most catastrophic decades of modern European history: the horror of the First World War, the turbulence of the Weimar Republic, and the lengthening shadow of fascism. Now, a major new biography from two of the world's foremost Benjamin scholars reaches beyond the mosaic and the mythical to present this intriguing figure in full.Howard Eiland and Michael Jennings make available for the first time a rich store of information which augments and corrects the record of an extraordinary life. They offer a comprehensive portrait of Benjamin and his times as well as extensive commentaries on his major works, including "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility," the essays on Baudelaire, and the great study of the German "Trauerspiel." Sure to become the standard reference biography of this seminal thinker, " Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life" will prove a source of inexhaustible interest for Benjamin scholars and novices alike.

Reception in Distraction

Abstract: I take my title from a passage near the end of Benjamin’s essay on the technological reproducibility of the work of art. Benjamin italicizes the sentence: ‘‘Reception in distraction [Die Rezeption in der Zerstreuung]—the sort of reception which is increasingly noticeable in all areas of art and is a symptom of profound changes in apperception—finds in film its true training ground [Übungsinstrument].’’ 1 I would like, in what follows, to highlight a certain inconsistency (if I can put it that way) in Benjamin’s handling of the concept of distraction, a variance in his attitude toward the concept, and I would like to show how two separate attitudes involved here—one promi-

Early writings, 1910-1917

Abstract: Walter Benjamin became a published writer at the age of seventeen Yet the first stirrings of this most original of critical minds--penned during the years in which he transformed himself from the comfortable son of a haute-bourgeois German Jewish family into the nomadic, uncompromising philosopher-critic we have since come to appreciate--have until now remained largely unavailable in English Early Writings, 1910-1917 rectifies this situation, documenting the formative intellectual experiences of one of the twentieth century's most resolutely independent thinkers Here we see the young Benjamin in his various roles as moralist, cultural critic, school reformer, and poet-philosopher The diversity of interest and profundity of thought characteristic of his better-known work from the 1920s and 30s are already in evidence, as we witness the emergence of critical projects that would occupy Benjamin throughout his intellectual career: the role of the present in historical remembrance, the relationship of the intellectual to political action, the idea of truth in works of art, and the investigation of language as the veiled medium of experience Even at this early stage, a recognizably Benjaminian way of thinking comes into view--a daring, boundary-crossing enterprise that does away with classical antitheses in favor of the relentlessly-seeking critical consciousness that produced the groundbreaking works of his later years With the publication of these early writings, our portrait of one of the most significant intellects of the twentieth century edges closer to completion

The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure

Abstract: Infrastructures are material forms that allow for the possibility of exchange over space. They are the physical networks through which goods, ideas, waste, power, people, and finance are trafficked. In this article I trace the range of anthropological literature that seeks to theorize infrastructure by drawing on biopolitics, science and technology studies, and theories of technopolitics. I also examine other dimensions of infrastructures that release different meanings and structure politics in various ways: through the aesthetic and the sensorial, desire and promise.

Towards a Politics of Mobility

Abstract: This paper proposes an approach to mobility that takes both historical mobilities and forms of immobility seriously. It is argued that is important for the development of a politics of mobility. To...

New Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies

Abstract: This book is the first monograph on the theme of “new materialism,” an emerging trend in 21st century thought that has already left its mark in such fields as philosophy, cultural theory, feminism, science studies, and the arts. The first part of the book contains elaborate interviews with some of the most prominent new materialist scholars of today: Rosi Braidotti, Manuel DeLanda, Karen Barad, and Quentin Meillassoux. The second part situates the new materialist tradition in contemporary thought by singling out its transversal methodology, its position on sexual differing, and by developing the ethical and political consequences of new materialism.

Imperial Debris: Reflections on Ruins and Ruination

Abstract: In this article, I look at “imperial formations” rather than at empire per se to register the ongoing quality of processes of decimation, displacement, and reclamation. Imperial formations are relations of force, harboring political forms that endure beyond the formal exclusions that legislate against equal opportunity, commensurate dignities, and equal rights. Working with the concept of imperial formation, rather than empire per se, the emphasis shifts from fixed forms of sovereignty and its denials to gradated forms of sovereignty and what has long marked the technologies of imperial rule—sliding and contested scales of differential rights. Imperial formations are defined by racialized relations of allocations and appropriations. Unlike empires, they are processes of becoming, not fixed things. Not least they are states of deferral that mete out promissory notes that are not exceptions to their operation but constitutive of them: imperial guardianship, trusteeships, delayed autonomy, temporary intervention, conditional tutelage, military takeover in the name of humanitarian works, violent intervention in the name of human rights, and security measures in the name of peace.

Supporters, followers, fans and flaneurs : a taxonomy of spectator identities in football.

Abstract: World football (or soccer) has undergone an intensive hypercommodification over the past decade or so. This article examines the impact of this process on forms of spectator identification with top professional football clubs. Drawing upon previous analyses by Taylor and Critcher (on football) and the theories of Bryan Turner (on body culture), the article advances four ideal types of spectator identity: supporters, followers, fans, and flâneurs. The broad trend in sports identification is away from the supporter model (with its hot, traditional identification with local clubs) and toward the more detached, cool, consumer-orientated identification of the flâneur.