Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Modernity – A Symposium

SESSION ONE
10:00 am - 11:00 am

Alex Draxl (GER)  
“‘…wie einen Ball in Händen zu wenden:’ Fate, Play, and Modernity”

Gyoonho Kong (GER)  
“Do You Believe in the Messiah? DeMan and Derrida Reading ‘The Task of the Translator’”

11:00 AM COFFEE BREAK

SESSION TWO
11:15 am - 12:15 pm

Carlos Kong (ART)  
“Urban Experience and the Work of Art after Rilke in Benjamin’s Einbahnstraße”

Jackson Smith (FIT)  
“Trompe-la-mort-ification of Works: Walter Benjamin, Lionel Ruffel and the Literary Undead”

SESSION THREE
1:15 pm - 2:15 pm

Elias Pitegoff (GER)  
“Entertaining Annihilation; Reframing the Figure of the Sublime in Ur-ban Commodity Capitalism”

Kathrin Witter (GER)
 „’…so dialektisch ist es nun einmal um unsere Produktion bestellt:’“ Adorno’s critique and Benjamin’s Baudelaire Essays”

2:15 PM COFFEE BREAK

SESSION FOUR
2:30 pm - 3:30 pm

Julian Rose (ART)  
“Looking Through the Glass: Modern Architecture in Benjamin’s Thought”

Zehra Ahmed (ARC)  
“Street as Model”

3:30 PM COFFEE BREAK

SESSION FIVE
3:45 pm - 4:45 pm

Joe Bucciero (ART)  
“Common Objects and the Work of Art”

Baharak Beizaei (GER)  
“Paris, or the Urform of the Book”

KEYNOTE ADDRESS
5:15 pm - 6:30 pm

James McFarland, Vanderbilt University
“Embodiments of Capital: Walter Benjamin on the Limits of Money.”