Benjamin's Abilities Book

List of Abbreviations

I Benjamin's -abilities

1 Introduction 3

2 Prehistory: Kant, Holderlin - et cetera 11

3 Criticizability - Calculability 20

4 Impart-ability: Language as Medium 31

5 Translatability I: Following (Nachfolge) 53

6 Translatability II: Afterlife 79

7 Citability - of Gesture 95

8 Ability and Style 115

9 An Afterlife of -abilities: Derrida 122

II Legibilities

10 Genealogy of Modernity: History, Myth, and Allegory in Benjamin's Origin of the German Mourning Play 131

11 Awakening 164

12 Taking Exception to Decision: Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt 176

13 Violence and Gesture: Agamben Reading Benjamin Reading Kafka Reading Cervantes... 195

14 Song and Glance: Walter Benjamin's Secret Names (zugewandt-unverwandt) 211

15 "Streets, Squares, Theaters": A City on the Move - Walter Benjamin's Paris 227

16 God and the Devil - in Detail 240

17 Closing the Net: "Capitalism as Religion" (Benjamin) 250

18 The Ring as Trauerspiel: Reading Wagner with Benjamin and Derrida 281

19 Reading Benjamin 297

20 "Seagulls" 310

App Walter Benjamin's "Seagulls": A Translation 325

Notes 327

Acknowledgments 357

Index 359