HUMSS - Carolin Duttlinger

Walter Benjamin's Journalistic Networks: Two Case Studies

Walter Benjamin's journalistic writings are a varied, original and important body of work, which interrelates with his more strictly 'academic' texts in fascinating ways. These texts have not yet been the focus of a dedicated study. In my paper, I give an overview of the research project on Benjamin's Journalistic Networks, which I am directing with two colleagues in Berlin, its aims and methods. I will then zoom in on two of Benjamin's texts - an exhibition review and a short story - to illustrate the core claim of the project: namely, that his journalistic writings should not be read in isolation but as part of a mobile network of people, journals, and texts, which mutually shape each other.