„…the ero­tic life is igni­ted by dis­tan­ce“
Wal­ter Ben­ja­min, Out­li­ne of the Psy­cho­phy­si­cal Pro­blem

Alt­hough Wal­ter Ben­ja­min’s re­fe­ren­ces to the con­cept and pra­xis of eros are spo­ra­dic, he ap­pears to be acu­tely con­cer­ned with ques­ti­ons of love and de­si­re from early on. In par­ti­cu­lar, his wri­tings are de­eply en­ga­ged with the con­cept of ἔρως as it ap­pears in Plato’s Sym­po­si­um, where it is de­fi­ned as a kind of su­per-me­di­um in which ever­y­thing com­mu­ni­ca­tes with ever­y­thing. Ben­ja­min, howe­ver, dis­lo­ca­tes the con­cept of eros. In his essay on the “de­mo­nic” fi­gu­re of Karl Kraus, for in­stan­ce, he at­tempts to over­co­me the am­bi­guous ent­an­gle­ment of spi­rit and the dai­mon—or, more pre­cise­ly, the ‘de­mo­nic na­tu­re’ of se­xua­li­ty—by ex­plo­ring the in­ti­ma­te re­la­ti­ons­hip bet­ween eros and lan­gua­ge.

Al­re­a­dy du­ring his time in the Youth Mo­ve­ment, Ben­ja­min’s en­ga­ge­ment with the am­bi­guous re­la­ti­on bet­ween eros and se­xua­li­ty led him to cri­ti­cise the com­mo­di­fi­ca­ti­on of se­xua­li­ty, whilst at the same time lau­ding ideas of an “ero­tic edu­ca­ti­on” in which ho­mo­se­xua­li­ty plays a major role.

In later years, es­pe­cial­ly in the pi­vo­tal essay on Goe­the’s Elec­tive Af­fi­nities, Ben­ja­min ap­proa­ches the ques­ti­on of eros from dif­fe­rent per­spec­tives, na­me­ly that of love and in­sti­tu­tio­na­li­sed bonds: on the one hand, he ques­ti­ons the ethi­cal mea­ning of mar­ria­ge, while, on the other, he out­li­nes his own an­thro­po­lo­gi­cal con­cept of love through a cri­ti­cal rea­ding of Lud­wig Kla­ges’ Vom kos­mogo­ni­schen Eros (1922). Ben­ja­min thus in­tro­du­ces a cha­rac­te­ris­tic ten­si­on bet­ween a no­ti­on of pure love and its fi­ni­te, ex­pe­ri­en­ti­al ite­ra­ti­on.

Fi­nal­ly, in his later wri­tings, Ben­ja­min ex­ami­nes love from a his­to­ri­cal per­spec­tive. In the Ar­ca­des Pro­ject as well as in his Bau­de­lai­re essay, we find some scat­te­red re­flec­tions in which the re­la­ti­ons­hip bet­ween eros and aura be­co­mes per­spi­cuous, since both are lin­ked to the in­ter­play of ne­ar­ness and dis­tan­ce.

Du­ring our two-day work­shop, we will draw on the ma­ni­fold mea­nings of the con­cept of eros in Ben­ja­min’s work. The event is the sixth in a se­ries of events dea­ling, di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, with Ben­ja­min’s con­cept of Ak­tua­li­tät. The work­shop will be or­ga­nis­ed around close rea­dings of selec­ted text pas­sa­ges, which allow con­nec­tions to be drawn bet­ween Ben­ja­min’s re­flec­tions on phi­lo­so­phy, aes­t­he­tics, lan­gua­ge, se­xua­li­ty, and his­to­ry. Since the work­shop re­vol­ves around in­ten­si­ve rea­ding ses­si­ons, some prior know­ledge of the re­le­vant texts is stron­gly en­cou­ra­ged. Bi­lin­gu­al, Ger­man-Eng­lish co­pies of the texts will be made avail­able. To fa­ci­li­ta­te the dis­cus­sion, the num­ber of par­ti­ci­pants for this work­shop is li­mi­ted.

This year we will be joi­ned by ES­THER LES­LIE (Birk­beck, Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don), who will give a keyno­te lec­tu­re on Eros in Wal­ter Ben­ja­min’s phi­lo­so­phy.

If you are in­te­rested in par­ti­ci­pa­ting, plea­se send a mes­sa­ge and a brief bio­gra­phi­cal note to the or­ga­nisers be­fo­re 1 March, 2019.

Con­tact: trus­kols@nulltcd.​ie, mar­che­so­ni.ste­fa­no@nullgmail.​com, nas­si­ma.sahraoui@nullgmx.​org, tom.​vandeput­te@nullsand­berg.nl

Or­ga­ni­sa­ti­on: Ste­fa­no Mar­che­so­ni (Milan), Nas­si­ma Sahraoui (Ham­burg/Frank­furt), Se­bas­ti­an Trus­ko­la­ski (Dub­lin), Tom Van­de­put­te (Ber­lin/Ams­ter­dam)

In col­la­bo­ra­ti­on with the De­part­ment of Ger­ma­nic Stu­dies, the School of Lan­gua­ges, Li­te­ra­tu­res and Cul­tu­ral Stu­dies, and the Fa­cul­ty of Arts, Hu­ma­nities and So­ci­al Sci­en­ces at Tri­ni­ty Col­le­ge Dub­lin, as well as the Phi­lo­so­phi­cal Col­lo­qui­um / Frank­furt Ben­ja­min Lec­tu­res (Tho­mas Re­geh­ly), and the Wal­ter Ben­ja­min Ar­chi­ve, Aca­de­my of Arts, Ber­lin.