Michael Jennings

We were very honored today to have Michael Jennings come visit us and give us a little insight to the inner workings of Benjamin and Kracauer. Jennings is an Associated Faculty Member of the Department of Art and Archaeology and the School of Architecture and a Faculty Associate of the Center for the Study of Religion. He sits on the Executive Committee of the Program in European Cultural Studies and the Ph.D. Program in Humanistic Studies. He is the author of two books on Walter Benjamin: Dialectical Images: Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Literary Criticism (Cornell University Press, 1987) and, with Howard Eiland, The Author as Producer: A Life of Walter Benjamin (Harvard University Press, forthcoming in 2012). He also serves as the general editor of the standard English-language edition of Benjamin’s works, Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings (Harvard University Press, four volumes, 1996ff.) and the editor of a series of collections of Benjamin’s essays intended for classroom use, including The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire (2007); with Brigid Doherty and Thomas Levin, The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility and other Writings on Media (2008) ; and, with Miriam Bratu Hansen, One Way Street (forthcoming in 2012). I think it is safe to say that Jennings knows what he's talking about.

Jennings regaled us today with a peek into the literary beings behind the works of Kracauer and Benjamin, revealing to us that they are actually more closely linked than most give away in that they often shared unpublished work with one another. Jennings suggested that Benjamin was perhaps even more convoluted in his writings and Kracauer was less psychoanalytical and rather more realistic prior to the publications we are familiar with. Of Benjamin, Jennings noted that "[his] earlier writings are remarkably resistant to understanding."

Jennings outlined the evolution of the Kultur section of German papers, which was once separated by a border line (referred to as a Strich) from the top portion of the paper, from articles to the short declarations and statements they became where Benjamin became more public. He also gave us a look inside Benjamin's life, revealing to us that Benjamin was in fact never really Benjamin, but rather wore a different mask for every group of friends, keeping them as separate as possible to avoid overlap, making an allusion to the movie "I'm Not There."

Jennings used a particular word in connection to Benjamin's writings which I have had the opportunity to come across previously in my studies that I would like to elaborate a little on for those who have not yet, as I think it is a fabulous word-- two words, actually. Flâneur is the French word for someone who strolls or takes a walk, but was adopted by philosophers to be someone who wanders the world observing and taking in their surroundings in a passive effort to understand. The term is also used in photography with detached but still aesthetically attuned street photography. Flânerie is therefore the practice of this behavior/lifestyle.

I encourage you to check out Jennings' work here at his Princeton page.

What did you guys think of Michael Jennings' talk? Were there any questions you wish you had asked?