The politics of imagination : : Benjamin, Kracauer, Kluge / / Tara Forrest.

• VerfasserIn: Forrest, Tara,
• Place / Publishing House: Bielefeld, Germany : : Transcript Verlag,, [2007]; ©2007
• Year of Publication: 2007
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Kultur- und Medientheorie
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (198)

This book explores Walter Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer and Alexander Kluge's analyses of the role that a rejuvenation in the capacity for imagination can play in encouraging us to reconceive the possibilities of the past, the present, and the future outside of the parameters of the status quo. The concept of imagination to which the title of the book refers is not a strictly defined, stable concept, but rather a term which is employed to refer to a capacity that facilitates both an active, creative relationship to one's environment, and a process of mediation between the outside world and one's own experiences and memories. Through a detailed analysis of their engagements with subjects that span a broad range of historical and thematic contexts (including topics as diverse as literature, children's play, film, photography, history, and television) the book charts the extent to which the concept of imagination plays a central role in Benjamin, Kracauer, and Kluge's explorations of a mode of perception and experience which could serve as a catalyst for the creation and sustenance of a desire for a different kind of future.

Reviewed in: cultural studies review, 14/2, 9 (2008), Lisa McDonald fsk Hamburg, 09.08.2009, Olaf Berg

Table of Contents

Frontmatter 1 Contents 5 Introduction 9 Chapter 1: Benjamin, Proust and the Rejuvenating Powers of Memory 21 Chapter 2: The Politics of Aura and Imagination in Benjamin's Writings on Hashish 43 Chapter 3: "Reproducibility - Distraction - Politicization" 65 Chapter 4: "Film as the Discoverer of the Marvels of Everyday Life": Kracauer and the Promise of Realist Cinema 89 Chapter 5: On the Task of a Realist Historiography in Kracauer's History: The Last Things Before the Last 107 Chapter 6: From History's Rubble: Kluge on Film, History, and Politics 127 Chapter 7: Raw Materials for the Imagination: Kluge's Work for Television 149 Conclusion 169 Bibliography 175 Other Works Cited 191 Acknowledgements 193