Forces of Education: Walter Benjamin and the Politics of Pedagogy

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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. Cover Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Contents Abbreviations Preface: Pedagogy and Experience in Walter Benjamin Editors’ Introduction Chronicle of Benjamin’s School and Student Years Part One Genealogies of Learning 1 Infans 2 Learning from Experience: Elements of Self-Criticism in Benjamin’s Work From “The Life of Students” to “A Communist Pedagogy” Learning from Experience Conclusion 3 Leitmotif Siegfried 4 The Child in Benjamin: An Enduring Lesson Part Two Languages of Youth 5 Conversational Pedagogy in Benjamin and Nietzsche 6 Speaking Silence: Historical Subjectivity in Nietzsche and Benjamin Youth: Self-Protest Pedagogy: Earnest Irony Language: A Rhetoric of Nonspeaking Conclusion 7 Silence, Medium, Transmission: Benjamin’s Metaphysics of Language and Youth Silence Medium Transmission 8 “In Voice Land”: Benjamin on Air Radio “Much Ado about Kasper” Storytelling The Possibility of Pedagogy Part Three Envisioning Pedagogical Futures 9 Unfulfilled Historical Time and the Self-Pedagogy of Critique 10 Against the Law: Youth and the Critical Pedagogy of Eternal Rebellion School Reform and Lawless Youth Freedom and the Force of Education Improvisational and Revolutionary Pedagogy 11 Improvision 12 Walter Benjamin and the Anthropocene 1. Benjamin, Aura, and Anthropocene 2. Pedagogy and Time 3. Rhythmus 4. Aufb litzen (Flashing Up) 5. A Qualitative Leap into the Twenty-First Century Contributors Index