Walter Benjamin and Theology - (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy) by Colby Dickinson & Stéphane Symons (Paperback)

About the Book

Benjamin's relationship to theological matters has been less observed than it should. Walter Benjamin and Theology brings together some of the world's most renowned experts to reassess the stake theology has in Benjamin's writings, aiming for nothing less than the beginning of a new phase in Anglophone Benjamin scholarship.

Book Synopsis

In the Arcades Project, Walter Benjamin writes that his work is "related to theology as blotting pad is related to ink. It is saturated with it." For a thinker so decisive to critical literary, cultural, political, and aesthetic writings over the past half-century, Benjamin's relationship to theological matters has been less observed than it should, even despite a variety of attempts over the last four decades to illuminate the theological elements latent within his eclectic and occasional writings. Such attempts, though undeniably crucial to comprehending his thought, remain in need of deepened systematic analysis. In bringing together some of the most renowned experts from both sides of the Atlantic, Walter Benjamin and Theology seeks to establish a new site from which to address both the issue of Benjamin's relationship with theology and all the crucial aspects that Benjamin himself grappled with when addressing the field and operations of theological inquiry.

Review Quotes

Ours is an age of revivified political religion, and many have come to feel that to understand the current troubles the conventional liberal oppositions--between reason and unreason, secularism and religion--no longer suffice. Even as we resist the authoritarian strains of religion, the question therefore arises as to whether we must adopt a more dialectical search for critical instruction within the realm of the theological itself. For such a task the thought of Walter Benjamin offers an important resource. Transposing theology into philosophy and philosophy back into theology with alchemical skill, his critical legacy continues to inspire novel reflections on a wide range of themes such as eschatology and apocalypse, messianism and transience, divine violence and divine hope. This excellent volume brings together essays by some of our most accomplished scholars to interrogate that legacy, providing crucial resource for all future discussion of these endlessly compelling themes.---Peter E. Gordon, The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University

Dickinson and Symonds's important book makes clear some of the ways that engagement
with Benjamin might invigorate theology.

-- "Modern Theology"

This volume provides a worthwhile contribution to the ongoing conversation between Continental philosophy and theology, both for those interested in Benjamin's work itself and for the broader conversations of which it has become a part.-- "Horizons: Journal of the College Theological Society"

About the Author

Colby Dickinson is Assistant Professor of Theology at Loyola University Chicago.

Stéphane Symons is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Philosophy at KU Leuven, Belgium.