1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910452542003321

Autore

Levine Michael G

Titolo

A weak messianic power [[electronic resource] ] : figures of a time to come in Benjamin, Derrida, and Celan / / Michael G. Levine

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, : Fordham University Press, 2014

ISBN

0-8232-5512-3

0-8232-5511-5

0-8232-6085-2

0-8232-5514-X

0-8232-5513-1

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (191 p.) : illustrations

Disciplina

202/.3

Soggetti

Messianism - History

LITERARY CRITICISM / Jewish

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures -- Acknowledgments -- 1. A Time to Come: Hunchbacked Theology, Post-Freudian Psychoanalysis, and Historical Materialism -- 2. The Day the Sun Stood Still: Benjamin’s Theses, Celan’s Realignments, Trauma, and the Eichmann Trial -- 3. Pendant: Celan, Büchner, and the Terrible Voice of the Meridian -- 4. On the Stroke of Circumcision I: Derrida, Celan, and the Covenant of the Word -- 5. On the Stroke of Circumcision II: Celan, Kafka, and the Wound in the Name -- 6. Poetry’s Demands and Abrahamic Sacrifi ce: Celan’s Poems for Eric -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

In his famous theses on the philosophy of history, Benjamin writes: “We have been endowed with a weak messianic power to which the past has a claim.” This claim addresses us not just from the past but from what will have belonged to it only as a missed possibility and unrealized potential. For Benajmin, as for Celan and Derrida, what has never been actualized remains with us, not as a lingering echo but as a secretly insistent appeal. Because such appeals do not pass through normal channels of communication, they require a special attunement, perhaps



even a mode of unconscious receptivity. Levine examines the ways in which this attunement is cultivated in Benjamin’s philosophical, autobiographical, and photohistorical writings; Celan’s poetry and poetological addresses; and Derrida’s writings on Celan.