When:
Monday, May 23, 2022
9:00 AM - 6:00 PM CT
Where: Norris University Center, Lake Room - Afternoon in Kresge 2415, 1999 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208 map it
Audience: Faculty/Staff - Student - Public - Post Docs/Docs - Graduate Students
Contact:
Courtney Essenpreis
(847) 491-7249
Group: Department of German
Co-Sponsor:
Comparative Literary Studies
Category: Academic, Lectures & Meetings, Religious, Multicultural & Diversity, Global & Civic Engagement
A Colloquium at Northwestern University in response to the publication of the new translation and critical edition of Walter Benjamin’s 1921 essay, “Zur Kritik der Gewalt” (Toward the Critique of Violence) recently published by Julia Ng and Peter Fenves.
Schedule of Events
9:00-9:45 AM - Norris Lake Room
Jörg Kreienbrock (Northwestern): Welcome
Julia Ng (Goldsmiths), Peter Fenves (Northwestern): Opening Remarks
I. “Toward the Critique of Violence” in Relation to Literary Critiques of Violence
10:00-11:15 AM - Norris Lake Room
Omoyemi Ajisebutu (Northwestern): “Toward the Critique of Violence” in Chinua Achebe’s
Arrow of God
Maggie Marusek (FU Berlin): Putting the Myth in Mythical Violence: Musil’s Take on Violence
and the Law
Miriam Bilsker (University of Chicago): Literary Tropes, Mythic Repetition: Benjaminian Fate in
the Poetry of Sandra Simonds
II. The Textuality of “Toward the Critique of Violence”
11:30 AM-1:00 PM - Norris Lake Room
Yu-jin Chang (Emerson): Janus Words: Auto-antonymic Ambiguity in Benjamin’s “Toward the
Critique of Violence”
Timothy Cannon (Northwestern): God’s Judgment on Korah’s Horde
Bernardo Barzana (Northwestern): Darstellung in Benjamin’s “Toward Critique of Violence”:
Presentation, Representation, Performance
Timothy Messen (Emory): Toward Non-Stupid Tautology and Non-Demonic Ambiguity
LUNCH BREAK
III. “Toward the Critique of Violence” Today
2:00-3:15 PM - Kresge 2415
Jonas Heller (University of Chicago/Frankfurt: The Force of Powerlessness: Acting Beyond
Power, according to Walter Benjamin
Matthew Gilmore (Northwestern): Earth, Heavenly Body: Geo-Ethics in Walter Benjamin’s
“Toward the Critique of Violence” (and Elsewhere)
Ashley Bohrer (Notre Dame): Walter Benjamin and Abolitionism in Theory and Practice
COFFEE BREAK
“Toward the Critique of Violence” under the Optic of Marx, Freud, and Du Bois
3:45-5:00 PM - Kresge 2415
Christian Obst (Brown): Wald und Gewalt: A Critical Forest Excursion with Marx
Eleonora Giannisi Antonakaki (Northwestern): Technologies of Violence and their Destruction
Marlon Millner (Northwestern): Dark Violence and Black Critique: Reading Walter Benjamin’s
“Toward the Critique of Violence” with W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction
5:15-6:00 PM: - Kresge 2415
Closing Discussion among Audience and Participants