“Hope went away, over their heads, like a star that falls from the sky.” - Goethe, Elective Affinities

On October 6th, at 5:30 PM, the Poetics & Theory Program, Department of Comparative Literature, the Department of German at NYU, and Deutsches Haus at NYU present “Benjamin on Goethe,” a workshop by Susan Bernstein and Kevin McLaughlin.

With the new critical edition of Walter Benjamin’s writings on Goethe, editors Susan Bernstein, Peter Fenves, and Kevin McLaughlin offer new insight into Benjamin’s work by detailing his enduring engagement with the figure of Goethe. The book pivots on two texts: his famous essay “Goethe’s Elective Affinities” published in 1924-25, and his less known and hardly read article “on Goethe” written for the Great Soviet Encyclopedia of 1929, which remained unpublished in his lifetime. While the first can be read as one of Benjamin’s most extensive investigations of myth and redemption culminating in a memorable reflection on hope, the second presents his attempt to develop a historical materialist literary criticism. Writing under challenging personal, professional, and political conditions, Benjamin adopts two distinct idioms to critically reflect on the monumental figure of Goethe and the significance of Weimar culture for the culture of the Weimar Republic as it devolves into Nazism. The volume attests to the formative interest Benjamin took in Goethe’s scientific writings from his dissertation on the Romantics to his theory of the dialectical image. In this constellation of his writings on Goethe may be glimpsed the urphenomenon of Benjamin’s thought.

Participants:
Susan Bernstein (Brown)
Kevin McLaughlin (Brown)
Avital Ronell (NYU)

Date and Time: October 6, 5:30 to 7:00 PM

Location: Deutsches Haus at NYU, 42 Washington Mews, New York, NY 10003

More Information: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfg-OgOHIsS0N3UUALQGnt8MNs13t5_z-L_CwsPcjcSbxAjuw/viewform