M. Kohlenbach - Böcker

Walter Benjamin's work represents one of the most radical and controversial responses to the problems of 20th-century culture and society. The interpretation presented here analyzes some of the central enigmatic features of his writing, arguing that they result from the co-presence of religious scepticism and the desire for a religious foundation of social life. Margarete Kohlenbach focuses on the structure of self-reference as an expression of Benjamin's sceptical religiosity and examines its significance in his writing on language, literature and the cinema, as well as history, politics and modern technology.

This new interpretation analyzes some of the central enigmatic features of his writing, arguing that they result from the co-presence of religious scepticism and the desire for a religious foundation of social life.

Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Erich Fromm, Max Horkheimer, Otto Kirchheimer and Franz Neumann, it analyzes the relevance of religious traditions and of the Enlightenment critique of religion for modern conceptions of emancipatory thought, art, law, and politics.