Published: 2018-12-28

The Experience of Shock Walter Benjamin and the Trauma of Modernity

Grzegorz Marcinkowski

Abstract

The author of the article tries to reconstruct both the way of perceiving subjectivity in the works of Walter Benjamin and the ways in which the tension between identity and history is manifested in his writings. The article concentrates on the concept of shock, developed by the philosopher during reading Baudelaire and Kafka. With this concept, it is possible to describe the transition from the narrative conception of experience to “point experience” constituted by series of sudden unconnected impulses. The moment conducing to this transition was the I World War which for Benjamin – as well as for others significant thinkers of that time – constituted an important turning point.

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Citation rules

Marcinkowski, G. (2018). The Experience of Shock Walter Benjamin and the Trauma of Modernity. Śląskie Studia Polonistyczne [Silesian Journal of Polish Studies], 12(2), 9–23. Retrieved from https://journals.us.edu.pl/index.php/SSP/article/view/8795

Tom 12 Nr 2 (2018): Materialność nowoczesności

Vol. 12 No. 2 (2018)
Published: 2018-12-28


ISSN: 2084-0772
eISSN: 2353-0928

Publisher
Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego | University of Silesia Press

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