Benjamin’s own work fused mysticism and modern urban experience

Evidence

What Benjamin once wrote of Kafka might have been applied to himself: “Kafka’s work is an ellipse with foci that are far apart and are determined, on the one hand, by mystical experience (in particular, the experience of tradition) and, on the other, by the experience of the modern big-city dweller” (Illuminations, pp. 144145). — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 1494

Categorization

• XREF: Ties Benjamin’s intellectual position to the broader tension between theological/redemptive currents and Marxist/empirical ones within the Institute. — connects to: Benjamin’s interest in Goethe’s Urphänomene showed his theological roots — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 626; Benjamin rooted his Theory of Experience in a childhood memory — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 1462; Benjamin secularized Jewish messianism into his Marxist theory of revolutionary time — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 600 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Benjamin secularized Jewish messianism into his Marxist theory of revolutionary time #expands (0.80) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 600
• Benjamin read Kafka’s messianism as a theologico-political remnant #exemplifies (0.75) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 756
• Early modernists saw industrial city life as demanding a fundamentally new art #corroborates (0.72) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 143