Räume und Räumlichkeit / Spaces and Spatiality
Programm
Download Program as PDF (Last update: 10.12.2015)
Sunday, December 13 (Tel Aviv)
09.30–10.00 Greetings
10.00–12.00 Two parallel sessions
Benjamin’s Cities (Chairs: Richard I. Cohen and Bernd Witte)
- Karol Sauerland (University of Warsaw): Moskau als mehrfach unbewältigter Raum
- Edward Waysband (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem): »Wo viel Raum ist, da ist viel Zeit«: The ›Asiatic‹ Chronotope in Tomas Mann’s Magic Mountain and Walter Benjamin’s Moscow Diary
- Brian Britt (Virginia Tech): Cosmic, Literary Jerusalem
Space and Time (Chairs: Andrew Benjamin and Sigrid Weigel)
- Maria Teresa Costa (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut): Benjamin ‘s Spaces of Thought – Space as Epistemo-critical Category
- Damiano Roberi (University of Turin): The uncertainty of the Sphinx: Nature as Threshold in Benjamin’s reflections
- Yoav Beirach (Tel Aviv University): Color Out of Space: some thoughts about reality before spatiality in Benjamin
- Ole W. Fischer (University of Utah): Architecture in the Age of Its Digital Reproducibility? – Walter Benjamin, Immersion and the Digital Image
13.00–15.00 Two parallel sessions
History of a Place – Biography of an Individual (Chairs: Yoav Rinon and Ilit Ferber)
- Thomas Regehly (Philosophisches Kolloquium: Kritische Theorie Frankfurt): »…But I have been there!« – Living in a postcard or the power of the imaginary space of time
- Friederike Heimann (Freelance literary critic and author, Hamburg): Kolonien des Blumeshof: Zu Walter Benjamins und Gertrud Kolmars raumzeitlichen Gedächtnisbildern einer kindheitsbeherrschenden Epoche
- Michael Paninski (University of Vienna): From terra nullius to persona nullius – Investigations on sovereignty without a sovereign: Benjamin/Brecht
Dream Locales – Dream Spaces – Dream Configurations (Chairs: Galili Shahar and Itta Shedletzky)
- Regina Karl (Yale University): Thresholds: Dream and Awakening in Sigmund Freud and Walter Benjamin
- Ben Morgan (Worcester College, Oxford): Situating visceral interaction: the spatiality of human communication in Benjamin’s essays of the 1930s and recent developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience
- Roy Brand (Bezalel Academy of Art and Design): Experiment in the technique of awakening
15.30–17.30 Two parallel sessions
Jewish Spaces – Judaism and Spatiality (Chairs: Vivian Liska and Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin)
- Orr Scharf (The Open University of Israel): Time as Space and Space as Time: Walter Benjamin’s Urban Reflections as a Form of Secular Mysticism
- Lina Barouch (I-Core Da’at Hamakom / Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center / DLA Marbach): Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem: Space and its Overcoming
- Danielle Cohen-Levinas, (Paris-Sorbonne University): »Langage de la Révélation et langage comme Révélation«: Walter Benjamin et Franz Rosenzweig
- Eric Kligerman (University of Florida): From Kant’s Starry Skies to Kafka’s Odradek: Walter Benjamin and The Quantum of History
Dwelling and Thresholds (Chairs: Steven Aschheim and Joseph Mali)
- Robert Krause (University of Freiburg): On the Verge. Arcades and Passages between work, leisure and idleness
- Antonio Roselli (University of Paderborn): »Und indem sie sich kundgeben, kontrollieren sie sich.« Class consciousness as an effect of spacial dispositifs
- Thomas Wegmann (University of Innsbruck): Stairways, Hallways, and Corridors. About Distance and Distinction in Interstices
18.00–19.00
- Freddie Rokem (Tel Aviv University): »Dear Walter – Dear Gerhard«. Walter Benjamin on the Stage: Remarks on the Dramaturgy of Passport (With video-excerpts from the performance directed by Yael Cramsky)
Monday, December 14 (Tel Aviv)
10.00–12.00 Two parallel sessions
Spatial Figures of Thinking (Chairs: Birgit Erdle and Eli Friedlander)
- Annegret Pelz (University of Vienna): Denkbild Weimar. Philologische Erneuerung im Zeichen der Tischszene
- Natalie Chamat (FU Berlin): Thinking Space in Writing and Reading Languages: Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers / Einbahnstraße
- Sonia Goldblum (University of Haute-Alsace): Letters between places and spaces. Benjamin’s other ›language arcades‹
The Political Dimension of Space (Chairs: Irving Wohlfarth and Moshe Zuckermann)
- Milena Massalongo (University of Verona): When Time and Space become technically reproducible: Benjamin’s Moves against the Aestheticization of Thinking
- Nassima Sahraoui (Goethe University Frankfurt): Threshold / Border. In the Vestibule of Hell: Benjamin and Dante
- Andreas Greiert (Independent Historian): Topicality or Actualization. Benjamin’s Space of Experience and the Scholarship’s Spaces of Discourse
- Wolfram Malte Fues (University of Basel): Der auratische Raum
13.30–15.30 Two parallel sessions
Benjamin’s Cities (Chairs: Richard I. Cohen and Bernd Witte)
- Naama Dar Amir (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem): London Fairs and the Flâneur
- Yossi Brill (Tel Aviv University/ University of Munich): From the Campo Santo in Milan to the Corsican Holy Field: Stone and Space in Benjamin’s Thinking
- Patricia A. Gwozdz (University of Potsdam): Absorbing Time through the Porosity of Space. Reading Benjamin with Borges
Space and Time (Chairs: Andrew Benjamin and Sigrid Weigel)
- Eran Dorfman (Tel Aviv University): Space, Time and Repetition: Regaining the Aura of the Habitual
- Nitzan Lebovic (Lehigh University): A Time for Benjamin, the last European
- Jörg Kreienbrock (Northwestern University): Benjamin’s Conversation above the Corso: The Time and Place of Carnival
14.30–16.00 Doctoral students meeting and Book presentation
16.15–17.45 Keynote Lecture
George Didi-Huberman (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales Paris): Aperçus en sens multiples [Glimpses in Multiple-Ways Street]
19.00–20.00 Visit to the Exhibition »Walter Benjamin: Exilic Archives«, Tel Aviv Museum, Guides: Ursula Marx, Noam Segal, Raphael Zagury-Orly
Tuesday, December 15 (Jerusalem)
10.00–12.00 Two parallel sessions
History of a Place – Biography of an Individual (Chairs: Yoav Rinon and Ilit Ferber)
- Yael Almog (ZfL): City Life: Walter Benjamin’s World of Things
- Dafna Shetreet (Tel Aviv University): Dialectics of collapse and conservation in Walter Benjamin’s autobiographical writings: Berlin Childhood around 1900
- Sabine Schiller-Lerg (University of Applied Sciences Münster): An der Peripherie der Kultur. Walter Benjamins Amerika
Dream Locales – Dream Spaces – Dream Configurations (Chairs: Galili Shahar and Itta Shedletzky)
- Caroline Sauter (ZfL): Paysage fantomatique: Benjamin’s Dreams
- Nikos Tzanakis Papadakis (FU Berlin): Der Ort des Unterdrückten und seine Zeit
- Lena Stölzl (University of Vienna): Image, dialectics and the topographies of awakening
13.00–15.00 Two parallel sessions
Jewish Spaces – Judaism and Spatiality (Chairs: Vivian Liska and Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin)
- Idit Alphandary (Tel Aviv University): The Time and Places of Forgiveness, Justice, and Historical Responsibility.
- Agata Bielik-Robson (University of Nottingham): Benjamin’s Swamps: The Space of the Antinomian
- Fabrizio Desideri (University of Florence): Intermittency: the differential of the time and the integral of the space. The intensive spatiality of the Monad, the Apokatastasis and the Messianic World in Benjamin’s latest thinking
- Valentin Mertes (University of Vienna): Apokatastasis als Verfahren
Dwelling and Thresholds (Chairs: Steven Aschheim and Joseph Mali)
- Yogev Zusman (Independent Scholar): On Benjamin’s Porous Monadology: Polyspatiality, Entropy and the ›Spark of Contingency‹
- Tim Altenhof (Yale School of Architecture): Aura and Interpenetration in Sigfried Giedion and Walter Benjamin
- Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem): Inhabiting the Inter-Space: Walter Benjamin’s Porous Places as Room-for-Play
- Isabel v. Wilcke (Leuphana University Lüneburg): Aura – place of dwelling to another world / Aura-Schwellenort zu einer anderen Welt
15.30–16.30
Panel: Benjamin in Israel
- Moshe Idel (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
- Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin (Ben Gurion University/Van Leer Institute Jerusalem)
- Yoav Rinon (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
16.45–18.15 Keynote Lecture
Eva Geulen (ZfL / HU Berlin): Borders and Limits in Walter Benjamin
18.45–20.00 Guided tour at the Israel Museum, including Paul Klee's Angelus Novus
Wednesday, December 16 (Jerusalem)
10.00–12.00 Two parallel sessions
Spatial figures of thinking (Chairs: Birgit Erdle and Eli Friedlander)
- Sarah Scheibenberger (Leipzig University): »Einsicht in die Fügung«. Benjamin’s Hölderlin essay in the light of a reading of Aristotle
- Stefano Marchesoni (University of Trento): Aporias of Spatial Discontinuity. Walter Benjamin and Aristotle’s Physics
- Roy Amir (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem): Ursprung, Umweg, and the (im)purity of time and space: Hermann Cohen and Walter Benjamin
The Political Dimension of Space (Chairs: Ilit Ferber and Vivian Liska)
- Adam Lipszyc (Polish Academy of Science): The Space of Exception
- Ariel Handel (Ben Gurion University/ Tel Aviv University): The right to get lost: the politics of wandering in the Occupied Territories
- Christian Schulte (University of Vienna): »Das gelobte Land der Sabotage« – Der Gestus der Deterritorialisierung bei W. Benjamin
12.00–13.00 Society meeting
14.00–16.00 Two parallel sessions
Benjamin’s Cities (Chairs: Richard I. Cohen and Bernd Witte)
- Marcio Seligmann Silva (State University of Campinas Brazil): From Porosity to Transparency: Interpenetration of Time and Space in Walter Benjamin’s City philosophy
- Daniel Weidner (ZfL/HU Berlin): Geschichtstheater und Erinnerungsraum. Zur Poetologie des Panoramas bei Brod, Broch und Benjamin
- Henrik Reeh (University of Copenhagen): Spatialized Time and Historic Cityscapes: Walter Benjamin and Léon Daudet’s Paris vécu (Lived Paris)
Spatial figures of thinking (Chairs: Birgit Erdle and Eli Friedlander)
- Noam Melamed (Tel Aviv University): The Life of the Educator
- Ori Rotlevy (Tel Aviv University): The Detour as a Spatio-Temporal Figure for Schooling the Mind
- Clemens-Carl Härle (University of Siena): Raumzeitfiguren bei Benjamin
16.30–18.00 Keynote Lecture
Michael W. Jennings (Princeton University): Toward the Apokatastatic Will: Media, Theology, and Politics in Walter. Benjamin’s Late Work
18.00 Concluding Remarks
For Walter Benjamin, »space« is a seminal notion with broad and multifaceted manifestations in his writing. Space rarely appears there as an independent concept, but is rather bound up with language, temporality, memory, writing, image, and experience. Space thus emerges not only as one of Benjamin’s most prominent topics (such as his discussions of concrete places like Berlin, Moscow, and Naples), but also as part of the very infrastructure of his thought. Space intersects with temporality and history, as is evident in Benjamin’s conceptualization of Paris as the capital of the 19th century as well as in his detailed discussion of the bourgeois interiors of Berlin at the turn of the twentieth century. Spatiality is a fundamental idea informing Benjamin’s conceptualization of border, threshold, and limit and their literal and metaphoric implications; it has a crucial function in Benjamin’s conceptualization of the »dialectical image« and its temporal as well as linguistic configurations. In exploring space and spatiality as subject matter and conceptual structure of Benjamin’s thought, this conference aims to enhance the engagement with and understanding of a central aspect of Benjamin’s oeuvre as well as its continuous relevance for our time.
International Walter Benjamin Society (IWBS) Conference