Walter Benjamin's "Über den Begriff der Geschichte" and the Marxist Tradition

Maxwell Wade

doi:10.6017/dupjbc.v6i1.11737

Abstract

Walter Benjamin's Theses on the Concept of History (1942) have long puzzled Benjamin scholars due to several of its stylistic and thematic departures from earlier works. In this paper, I evaluate the relation of the text to the rest of Benjamin’s thought, as well as the various schools of interpretation surrounding it. I then use that initial framework in order to place Benjamin’s text in conversation with other Marxist texts (so as to demonstrate parallel lines of thought between Benjamin’s latter works and the earlier Marxist tradition). By examining certain key texts in the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe, or MEGA, I indicate the ways in which Marx engaged with many of the same questions and themes as Benjamin's Theses, and, in doing so, argue against the dominant interpretation that sees this text as a break with Benjamin's prior Marxist, political commitments.

Highlights

Perhaps one of the most basic difficulties in Benjamin scholarship with “On the Concept of History” is the plethora of interpretations around it, many of which contradict each other
Walter Benjamin’s “On the Concept of History” has long puzzled readers due to its eclectic and novel theses that call into question orthodox understandings of religion, Marxism, and historical progress
Rainer Nägele, for example, thinks that “Benjamin was compelled to make a paradoxical turn, or Umschlag, from politics to religion and this had to do with his psychology.”[3]. But it is not clear to me where the paradox lies in this turn, unless we are to take it that religion and politics are like oil and water, absolutely incapable of intermixing

Summary

Introduction

Perhaps one of the most basic difficulties in Benjamin scholarship with “On the Concept of History” is the plethora of interpretations around it, many of which contradict each other.

Results

Conclusion