The Lockdown Chronicles 35: Walter

Click on the image below to read the comic strip in full size. Sources and references on this post under the comic strip below.

 

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. Benjamin made enduring and influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. “Theses on the Philosophy of History” also known as “On the Concept of History” is often cited as Benjamin’s last complete work. The Institute for Social Research, by then relocated to New York, published it in Benjamin’s memory in 1942 [Wikipedia entry].

Text sources: Kwai, I. (1 June 2020). “U.S. Protests, Coronavirus, SpaceX: Your Monday Briefing”. The New York Times, NYT.com; ADPH Presidential Blog (31 May 2020) “ADPH Presidential Blog: “A time for steady leadership, careful preparation and measured steps”, https://www.adph.org.uk/; Benjamin, W. (2003) [1940] “On the Concept of History”, Selected Writings Vol. 4, Harvard.

Source image: photograph of Walter Benjamin, 1928, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Walter Benjamin Archiv, via Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain. This comic strip CC-BY-NC-SA.

References

Kwai, I. (1 June 2020) “U.S. Protests, Coronavirus, SpaceX: Your Monday Briefing”. The New York Times. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/briefing/us-protests-coronavirus-spacex.html [Accessed 1 June 2020]

ADPH Presidential Blog (31 May 2020) “ADPH Presidential Blog: A time for steady leadership, careful preparation and measured steps”. Available at https://www.adph.org.uk/2020/05/adph-presidential-blog-a-time-for-steady-leadership-careful-preparation-and-measured-steps/ [Accessed 1 June 2020]

Benjamin, W. (2003) [1940] “On the Concept of History”, Selected Writings Vol. 4, Harvard. Scanned PDF version via Warwick University at https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/second/en229/benjamin_on_the_concept_of_history.pdf  [Accessed 1 June 2020]. HTML version via Simon Fraser University at https://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/CONCEPT2.html [Accessed 1 June 2020]

Photograph of Walter Benjamin in 1928, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Walter Benjamin Archiv, via Wikimedia Commons, available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walter_Benjamin_vers_1928.jpg [Accessed 1 June 2020]

Additional Readings

Tomlins, C. (1 December 2010) “Lessons of History”. Perspectives on History. Available via https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/december-2010/lessons-of-history [Accessed 1 June 2020]

Kirsch, A. (14 August 2006) “The Philosopher Stoned”. The New Yorker. Available at https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/08/21/the-philosopher-stoned [Accessed 1 June 2020]

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The Lockdown Chronicles is a series of periodical comic strips made at night (in candlelight!) adapting and reusing openly-licensed or public domain items from online digital collections. Publication and tweetage are scheduled in advance. Historical sources are adapted and updated for the current pandemic; please refer to each strip’s references on each post for further context.  Catch up with the series at https://epriego.blog/tag/the-lockdown-chronicles/.