Work of Forgetting - Or, How Can We Make the Future Possible?

This book presents a critical discussion of the turn to memory, a key evolution in the humanities in the last 50 years. It offers an innovative interpretation of Walter Benjamin's philosophy of history and his oeuvre at large, taking a thematic approach to the issue of forgetting, based on detailed readings of key philosophers of the 20th century.

List of contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Work of Forgetting. Or, How Can We Make the Future Possible?

Chapter One: What is Thought? And How Can We Bring It About?

Chapter Two: What is the Immemorial? And How Can We Make It Go Away?

Chapter Three: What is the Child? Or How Can We Begin Anew?

By Way of Conclusion: A Note on Shadows

Index

About the author

Stephane Symons is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at KU Leuven, Belgium. He is the author of Walter Benjamin: Presence of Mind, Failure to Comprehend (2013) and More than Life: Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin on Art (2017), editor of The Marriage of Aesthetics and Ethics (2015) and co-editor of Walter Benjamin and Theology (2015).

Product details

• Authors: Stephane Symons, Symons Stephane
• Publisher: Rowman and Littlefield
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.10.2021
• EAN: 9781538158272
• ISBN: 978-1-5381-5827-2
• No. of pages: 222
• Series: Philosophical Projections
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: antiquity to present day; History of Ideas, PHILOSOPHY / Movements / Phenomenology, PHILOSOPHY / Aesthetics, LITERARY CRITICISM / Comparative Literature, PHILOSOPHY / Movements / Critical Theory, Comparative Literature, Critical Theory, Modern philosophy: since c 1800, Philosophy: aesthetics, Literature: history & criticism, Phenomenology & Existentialism