In the frenzied final years of the Weimar Republic, amid economic collapse and mourning political catastrophe, Walter Benjamin emerged as the most original practicing literary critic and public intellectual in the German-speaking world. Volume 2 of Selected Writings, covering the years 1927 to 1934, displays the full spectrum of Benjamin's achievements at this pivotal stage in his career. Pr…
In the frenzied final years of the Weimar Republic, amid economic collapse and mounting political catastrophe, Walter Benjamin emerged as the most original practicing literary critic and public intellectual in the German-speaking world. Volume 2 of the Selected Writings is now available in paperback in two parts. In Part 1, Benjamin is represented by two of his greatest literary essays, "Sur…
"Every line we succeed in publishing today...is a victory wrested from the powers of darkness." So wrote Walter Benjamin in January 1940. Not long afterward, he himself would fall prey to those powers, a victim of suicide following a failed attempt to flee the Nazis. However insistently the idea of catastrophe hangs over Benjamin's writings in the final years of his life, the "victories wrested…
Radical critic of a European civilization plunging into darkness, yet commemorator of the humane traditions of the old bourgeoisie--such was Walter Benjamin in the later 1930s. This volume, the third in a four-volume set, offers twenty-seven brilliant pieces, nineteen of which have never before been translated. The centerpiece, A Berlin Childhood around 1900, marks the first appearance in Engli…
Casting a critical eye on comic works throughout the ages, Meredith finds that the most skilled masters of the comic art―Aristophanes, Rabelais, Voltaire, Cervantes, Fielding, Molière―used comedy to grasp the essence of humanity. Comedy, according to Meredith's theory, serves an important moral and social function: it redeems us from our posturings, stripping away pride, arrogance, complac…
The fifteenth century experienced the longest and bloodiest series of civil wars in British history. The crown of England changed hands violently five times as the great families of England fought to the death for the right to rule. Some of the greatest heroes and villains in history were thrown together in these chaotic years. Yet efforts were made to maintain some semblance of peace and or…
Cikar Bobrok merupakan kumpulan reportasenya yang berbicara tentang seni dan budaya yang muncul dari wilayah marjinal. Tulisan Sindhunata ini sebenarnya adalah berita-berita yang menyampaikan beberapa peristiwa yang pernah ditampilkan di Gedung Bentara Budaya, Yogyakarta. Dari situ kita dapat merasakan kedekatan dunia seni dan budaya dengan dunia jurnalistik, sehingga tampak bahwa budaya bukanl…