The image of crisis
Walter Benjamin and the interpretation of ‘crisis’ in modernity
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4481236 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Willem Schinkel (0000-0002-8154-6245, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 127 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 36-51 |
| Publication date | 2015-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Thesis Eleven (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0725-5136 • E-ISSN: 1461-7455 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0725513615575529 |
| OpenAlex | W2041940211 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 11 |
| References cited | 6 |
Crisis jargon has become endemic in modernity. Whether in radical or in affirmative versions, the idea that 'crisis' offers 'opportunity', in accordance with the meaning of crisis as 'decision', is widespread. This paper questions the relationship between modernity and crisis, first by highlighting the ways in which modernity itself has been cast as 'crisis': first as crisis of tradition, then as crisis of modernity itself. The main part of this paper then consists of a reading of modernity-as-crisis inspired by Walter Benjamin, most notably by his Passagen-Werk. It consists of an attempt to consider 'crisis' as what Benjamin calls a 'wish image', an image that contains hidden utopian ideals. In invoking 'crisis', I argue, a conception of modernity as shock, raised to the level of the collective, becomes apparent. Crisis jargon thereby remains wedded to what Benjamin calls a mythical conception of history. The paper ends with a discussion of the political consequences that follow from this that are grounded in the relation between messianism and profane politics in Benjamin
Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Jargon · Linguistics · Literature · Messianism · Modernity · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Walter Benjamin Studies Compilation
Kairos and Crisis
Working the rational and the mystical into “superfoods”
The Mediterranean
From wastelands to waiting lands
The political effects of emergency frames in sustainability
The Ends of Revolution
For an Educational Engagement with Crisis
Patrols, records and pictures
Between Infrastructural Experimentation and Collective Imagination
Living in crisis
Recuperation through Crisis Talk
| Unique citing works | 11 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,1 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2026 (11) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 11 |