{"title":"Benjamin and the Archive Today","authors":"Olivia Landry","doi":"10.1215/0094033x-10708349","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"At a contemporary moment of sweeping scholarly interest in and interrogation of the archive, this brief essay returns to Walter Benjamin. Formulating the archive as a fugacious site of ruin and excavation, Benjamin’s approach presents an early counterposition to the modern view of the same as a bulwark of historical permanence and national stability. To illustrate the continuing relevance of Benjamin’s work, the essay turns to recent discussions of the topic “archives of migration” in the German transnational context. Distinct from official archives comprising collected and cataloged documents and objects, these archives present transient sites of negotiation, reterritorialization, and self-determination that work against national projects of historiography and their mechanisms of suppression. The example of bi’bak, a transnational project space in Berlin established in 2014, and its revival of the Turkish-language videotape culture in 1980s West Germany furthermore reanimate Benjamin’s commitment to media’s role in the archaeological processes of the archive, which set it loose.","PeriodicalId":46595,"journal":{"name":"NEW GERMAN CRITIQUE","volume":"39 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"NEW GERMAN CRITIQUE","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1215/0094033x-10708349","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERARY THEORY & CRITICISM","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
At a contemporary moment of sweeping scholarly interest in and interrogation of the archive, this brief essay returns to Walter Benjamin. Formulating the archive as a fugacious site of ruin and excavation, Benjamin’s approach presents an early counterposition to the modern view of the same as a bulwark of historical permanence and national stability. To illustrate the continuing relevance of Benjamin’s work, the essay turns to recent discussions of the topic “archives of migration” in the German transnational context. Distinct from official archives comprising collected and cataloged documents and objects, these archives present transient sites of negotiation, reterritorialization, and self-determination that work against national projects of historiography and their mechanisms of suppression. The example of bi’bak, a transnational project space in Berlin established in 2014, and its revival of the Turkish-language videotape culture in 1980s West Germany furthermore reanimate Benjamin’s commitment to media’s role in the archaeological processes of the archive, which set it loose.
期刊介绍：
Widely considered the top journal in its field, New German Critique is an interdisciplinary journal that focuses on twentieth- and twenty-first-century German studies and publishes on a wide array of subjects, including literature, film, and media; literary theory and cultural studies; Holocaust studies; art and architecture; political and social theory; and philosophy. Established in the early 1970s, the journal has played a significant role in introducing U.S. readers to Frankfurt School thinkers and remains an important forum for debate in the humanities.
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