Articles by Dennis Johannßen
Forces of Education: Walter Benjamin and the Politics of Pedagogy, 2023
The pleasure of teaching is an act of resistance. " bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress I It is no... more The pleasure of teaching is an act of resistance. " bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress I It is no coincidence that we propose considering the German Jewish critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin a seminal thinker of pedagogy at the precise moment when our pedagogical institutions seem radically put to the test. If Benjamin's eighth thesis "On the Concept of History" holds "that the 'state of emergency' in which we live is not the exception but the rule, " this historical diagnosis must be fathomed to include the educational circumstance. 1 Given the countless calamities pedagogical institutions are facing two decades into the twenty-first century, the statement that education is "in crisis" reads less like a proposition of true diagnostic value than the citation of an analytic cliché whose appearance within a critical discussion of the state of pedagogy is simply expected if not prescribed. Looking back at its recent history, we observe not only that the university has undergone grave transformations in terms of its self-understanding and institutional structure, but also that it appears as a site of active ruination and perpetuated calamity. 2 Reminding the reader of the birth of the modern university through Wilhelm von Humboldt's humanist visions seems like a tasteless joke if we consider the neoliberal agenda that the university, first and foremost in Anglo-American countries, has come to fulfill. Humboldt saw universities as Freistätte, that is, places of freedom, whose task it was to host nothing but the spiritual life of humanity. 3 An affirmation of such freedom and its profession-in the declarative sense of to professcan be discerned in Jacques Derrida's 1999 prospect of a université sans condition. 4 The rather triste reality of our current situation, however, makes these conceptions seem like increasingly distant fantasies. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic shook up the global educational landscape in unprecedented ways, the university had lost touch with its ideal. While the European Union instituted the so-called "Bologna
Forces of Education: Walter Benjamin and the Politics of Pedagogy, 2023
Benjamin's early life and writings are surrounded by a nebulous aura. The years between 1912 and ... more Benjamin's early life and writings are surrounded by a nebulous aura. The years between 1912 and 1914 during which he became the leader of a radial intellectual subgroup of the German Youth Movement, are particularly vertiginous. Many commentators suspect that the various affiliations, disputes, and struggles of these years can no longer be fully reconstructed. Benjamin's own archive of these years, which could have shed further light on the period, was looted by the Nazis in 1933 when he was forced to leave Berlin. In addition, Benjamin's early years were complicated by his formative time at the Haubinda boarding school, of which not much is known, and by his perplexing decade-long commitment to the reform pedagogue Gustav Wyneken, who was dismissed from two teaching positions and convicted of sexual misconduct with minors in 1922. 1 Earlier reconstructions of Benjamin's Lehrjahre emphasized the radicality of the cesura that occurred in the summer of 1914, which prompted him to break with the Youth Movement and Wyneken, cutting ties with almost all his friends. In particular, Benjamin's radical idealism, his defense of the indeterminacy and openness of spirit (Geist), against any kind of practical political activism, cannot easily be reconciled with his later engagement with Marxism. Even within the many changing and shifting orientations of the Youth Movement, Benjamin's uncompromising defense of spirit, which he developed in conversation with Wyneken's pedagogical doctrines, differed increasingly from the views of almost everyone around him. Interested in these inconsistencies, later commentators explored the continuities rather than the ruptures between Benjamin's thought before and after 1914, focusing on his unorthodox idealism, his stance towards Judaism and theology, and his unique philological attention to all things spiritual, cultural, and artistic. Benjamin's thought during his early years resembles an "eddy" pulling in an astonishing number of ideas, perspectives, and impulses. 2 Some of the more persistent concepts that link his earlier to his later writings, such as experience, historical time, or progress, arose in the context of his engagement with questions of pedagogy and education. This engagement was informed by explorations of philosophy, literature, theater, media, and politics, and held together by his long-standing commitment to
The Germany Quarterly, 2022
This article examines Walter Benjamin's engagement with Martin Heidegger's postdoctoral thesis on... more This article examines Walter Benjamin's engagement with Martin Heidegger's postdoctoral thesis on the Scholastic philosophers Duns Scotus and Thomas of Erfurt. I argue that Benjamin's fragment “Wenn nach der Theorie des Duns Scotus” from the Winter of 1920–21 contains a direct response to Heidegger's thesis, marking the difference between their philosophies of language as well as a vital shift in Benjamin's critical project. After studying Heidegger's book, Benjamin abandons the plan to work on Scholastic analogies, focusing instead on allegory in Baroque mourning plays. This shift motivated Benjamin to distinguish his non-hierarchical and anti-anthropocentric understanding of language further from Heidegger's ontological view, which adheres, despite its non-instrumental character, to an authoritative relationship between language and being.
Entwendungen: Walter Benjamin und seine Quellen. Edited by Jessica Nitsche and Nadine Werner, 281–301. München: Fink, 2019
MLN 133:3 (April 2018): 637–53.
The SAGE Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory. Edited by Werner Bonefeld, Chris O'Kane and Beverley Best, 1252–69. London: Sage, 2018
This handbook chapter examines Critical Theory's early engagements with humanism and philosophica... more This handbook chapter examines Critical Theory's early engagements with humanism and philosophical anthropology. Although the critics and philosophers associated with the first generation of the Frankfurt School rejected the concept of an invariant human nature, they developed compelling ways to analyze the limitations that antagonistic societies impose on the human being. Early impulses came from Walter Benjamin, who destabilized the notion of human language and the antithesis of nature and history that shaped the anthropological problematic after Kant. Complementing Benjamin’s efforts, Max Horkheimer engaged critically with philosophical anthropology, humanist psychology, and fundamental ontology, proposing a negative humanism that takes its cue not from what is essentially human, but from what is inhumane and has to be abolished. Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm based their critique of existentialism and psychoanalysis in a more positive manner on Marx’s early understanding of the human being’s self-realization in labor. Theodor W. Adorno, in contrast, spurned anthropological assumptions in general, while at the same time interpreting in a dialectical fashion how human beings are restrained and negated under the conditions of repressive societies. In 1969, Ulrich Sonnemann’s "Negative Anthropology" demanded a permanent anthropological revolution, seeking to demonstrate the impossibility of any conclusive knowledge of the human being.
Das Leben im Menschen oder der Mensch im Leben? Deutsch-Französische Genealogien zwischen Anthropologie und Anti-Humanismus. Edited by Thomas Ebke and Caterina Zanfi, 91–104. Potsdam: Universitätsverlag Potsdam, 2017.
Dieser Beitrag fragt nach dem Verhältnis von Mensch und Dasein in Heideggers "Sein und Zeit". Daz... more Dieser Beitrag fragt nach dem Verhältnis von Mensch und Dasein in Heideggers "Sein und Zeit". Dazu werden drei komplementäre Aspekte untersucht: (1) Die lebensphilosophische Vorstellung des ganzen Menschen, (2) Dasein als Rückgang hinter die anthropologische Problematik und (3) das Sprachverständnis der Hermeneutik des Daseins. Die leitende These ist, dass "Sein und Zeit" die anthropologische Frage nach dem Menschen weder verabschiedet noch unausgesprochen wiederholt, sondern immanent weiterführt und auf ihre sprachphilosophische Neuorientierung hin freilegt.
Anthropologischer Materialismus und Materialismus der Begegnung: Vermessungen der Gegenwart im Ausgang von Walter Benjamin und Louis Althusser. Edited by Marc Berdet and Thomas Ebke, 143–62. Berlin: Xenomoi, 2014.
This book chapter discusses Walter Benjamin's "Outline of the Psychophysical Problem" (ca. 1922-2... more This book chapter discusses Walter Benjamin's "Outline of the Psychophysical Problem" (ca. 1922-23). I follow Benjamin's references to works by Paul Scheerbart, Erich Unger, and the Surrealists, arguing that the "anthropological materialism" he discerns in their writings reintroduces the sensual, physiological registers of human experience into the vocabularies of dialectical and historical materialism.
Anthropology and Materialism 1 (2013). http://am.revues.org/194.
How can philosophy speak about the human being? What is gained or lost by making theoretical assu... more How can philosophy speak about the human being? What is gained or lost by making theoretical assumptions about human essence or nature? This essay examines the "negative anthropology" of the early Frankfurt School by asking how Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, and Ulrich Sonnemann engage with the anthropological question. Negative anthropology turns out to be more than the critique of philosophical anthropology; by understanding the human being as the ensemble of what it is not, negative anthropology avoids the predicament of spelling out what it could be, while holding on to the idea of humanity's self-realization in history. What role does negative anthropology play as a component of Critical Theory? To what extent can it be part of a theoretical program? Do certain historical situations demand positive anthropological assumptions more than others? This essay addresses these questions by following the Frankfurt School's early engagements with anthropological philosophy.
Edited Volumes by Dennis Johannßen
Bringing Walter Benjamin into dialogue with the urgent issues facing educational institutions tod... more Bringing Walter Benjamin into dialogue with the urgent issues facing educational institutions today, this is the first comprehensive exploration of his philosophy of education and pedagogy.
In recent years, problems concerning the practice of education have become central to the critical discourse in the humanities: from debates regarding “deplatforming” and the redefinition of free speech on campus to the digitization of learning and the ethics of mentorship. But where do we go from here? This volume argues that Walter Benjamin's writing offers critical tools to rethink the purposes of education and the institutional forms it should assume.
Reaching from his earliest writings during his involvement with the antebellum German Youth Movement to his late essays on history, theatre, and new media, the authors here explore how Benjamin argued against education as an institutional task subject to a scientific discipline. They show instead how he took his cue from language as a medium of subtle understanding to critically analyze the forms of violence inherent in the concept and history of education. For Benjamin, education was the lever to political reform. For him, the experience of youth should always be at the centre of considerations.
Written by leading international scholars, Walter Benjamin and Education both contextualizes Benjamin's pedagogy in the trajectory of his own thought and also offers an astute analysis of the value and relevance of his student-focused ideas to the institutional and political challenges of today.
Book Reviews and Interviews by Dennis Johannßen
The German Quarterly 87/1 (Winter 2014): 129–30.
Catholicism, nationalism, fascism and finally, socialism-we begin to grasp, on the other hand, ho... more Catholicism, nationalism, fascism and finally, socialism-we begin to grasp, on the other hand, how he sets up his last illusion, socialism, as the test of an ultimate truth that resists disappearing into the postwar dustbin. Fühmann intuits with an at times hallucinatory zeal that the art of justice, poetic and otherwise, lies in refusing to abandon his demand that the hard-won illusion of truth not cede an inch to the cheaply bought truth that expedient illusion is all we have.
Zeitschrift für kritische Theorie 34/35 (2012): 235–53.
Zeitschrift für kritische Theorie 30/31 (2010): 171–92.
Zeitschrift für kritische Theorie, 2010
Das folgende Gespräch mit Martin Jay wurde in der ZkT 30/31 (2010) in einer
deutschen Übersetzung... more Das folgende Gespräch mit Martin Jay wurde in der ZkT 30/31 (2010) in einer
deutschen Übersetzung publiziert. Wir veröffentlichen hier die englische Originalversion.
Dennis Johannßen führte das Gespräch mit Jay am 18. Mai 2009 in
Berkeley (USA).
Conferences by Dennis Johannßen
This seminar at the German Studies Association Conference explores the contributions of Frankfurt... more This seminar at the German Studies Association Conference explores the contributions of Frankfurt School critical theory to discourses of the environmental humanities.
Selected Talks by Dennis Johannßen
Uploads
Articles by Dennis Johannßen
Edited Volumes by Dennis Johannßen
In recent years, problems concerning the practice of education have become central to the critical discourse in the humanities: from debates regarding “deplatforming” and the redefinition of free speech on campus to the digitization of learning and the ethics of mentorship. But where do we go from here? This volume argues that Walter Benjamin's writing offers critical tools to rethink the purposes of education and the institutional forms it should assume.
Reaching from his earliest writings during his involvement with the antebellum German Youth Movement to his late essays on history, theatre, and new media, the authors here explore how Benjamin argued against education as an institutional task subject to a scientific discipline. They show instead how he took his cue from language as a medium of subtle understanding to critically analyze the forms of violence inherent in the concept and history of education. For Benjamin, education was the lever to political reform. For him, the experience of youth should always be at the centre of considerations.
Written by leading international scholars, Walter Benjamin and Education both contextualizes Benjamin's pedagogy in the trajectory of his own thought and also offers an astute analysis of the value and relevance of his student-focused ideas to the institutional and political challenges of today.
Book Reviews and Interviews by Dennis Johannßen
deutschen Übersetzung publiziert. Wir veröffentlichen hier die englische Originalversion.
Dennis Johannßen führte das Gespräch mit Jay am 18. Mai 2009 in
Berkeley (USA).
Conferences by Dennis Johannßen
Selected Talks by Dennis Johannßen
In recent years, problems concerning the practice of education have become central to the critical discourse in the humanities: from debates regarding “deplatforming” and the redefinition of free speech on campus to the digitization of learning and the ethics of mentorship. But where do we go from here? This volume argues that Walter Benjamin's writing offers critical tools to rethink the purposes of education and the institutional forms it should assume.
Reaching from his earliest writings during his involvement with the antebellum German Youth Movement to his late essays on history, theatre, and new media, the authors here explore how Benjamin argued against education as an institutional task subject to a scientific discipline. They show instead how he took his cue from language as a medium of subtle understanding to critically analyze the forms of violence inherent in the concept and history of education. For Benjamin, education was the lever to political reform. For him, the experience of youth should always be at the centre of considerations.
Written by leading international scholars, Walter Benjamin and Education both contextualizes Benjamin's pedagogy in the trajectory of his own thought and also offers an astute analysis of the value and relevance of his student-focused ideas to the institutional and political challenges of today.
deutschen Übersetzung publiziert. Wir veröffentlichen hier die englische Originalversion.
Dennis Johannßen führte das Gespräch mit Jay am 18. Mai 2009 in
Berkeley (USA).