Articles by Dennis Johannßen
Forces of Education: Walter Benjamin and the Politics of Pedagogy, 2023
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Forces of Education: Walter Benjamin and the Politics of Pedagogy, 2023
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
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.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Entwendungen: Walter Benjamin und seine Quellen. Edited by Jessica Nitsche and Nadine Werner, 281–301. München: Fink, 2019
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
MLN 133:3 (April 2018): 637–53.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
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.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
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.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
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.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
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.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
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.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Book Reviews and Interviews by Dennis Johannßen
The German Quarterly 87/1 (Winter 2014): 129–30.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Zeitschrift für kritische Theorie 34/35 (2012): 235–53.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Zeitschrift für kritische Theorie 30/31 (2010): 171–92.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
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).
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
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.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Selected Talks by Dennis Johannßen
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
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).