The Politics of Imagination: Benjamin, Kracauer, Kluge

by Forrest, Tara

• ISBN13: 9783899426816
• ISBN10: 3899426819
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-02-15
• Publisher: Columbia Univ Pr

Summary

This book explores Walter Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer, and Alexander Kluge’s analyses of the role that a rejuvenation in the capacity for imagination can play in encouraging us to reconceive the possibilities of the past, the present, and the future outside of the parameters of the status quo. Through a detailed analysis of their engagements with subjects that span a broad range of historical and thematic contexts, this book charts the extent to which the concept of imagination plays a central role in the writers’ explorations of a mode of perception and experience which could serve as a catalyst for the creation and sustenance of a desire for a different kind of future.

Author Biography

Tara Forrest lectures in Film and Cultural Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Table of Contents

Walter Benjamin
Benjamin, Proust and the Rejuvenating Powers of Memory	p. 21
The Politics of Aura and Imagination in Benjamin's Writings on Hashish	p. 43
"Reproducibility - Distraction - Politicization"	p. 65
Siegfried Kracauer
"Film as the Discoverer of the Marvels of Everyday Life": Kracauer and the Promise of Realist Cinema	p. 89
On the Task of a Realist Historiography in Kracauer's History: The Last Things Before the Last	p. 107
Alexander Kluge
From History's Rubble: Kluge on Film, History, and Politics	p. 127
Raw Materials for the Imagination: Kluge's Work for Television	p. 149
Conclusion	p. 169
Bibliography	p. 175
Other Works Cited	p. 191
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