Walter Benjamin and Political Theology Hardback

Tracing Walter Benjamin's convergences with, and divergences from, influential German theorist Carl Schmitt, this edited collection places his thinking in the context of broader 20th century political philosophy of his time, and examines the question of whether Benjamin presents the possibility for a distinctive political theology, mapping the coordinates of this question without collapsing the tensions internal to Benjamin’s thought. Benjamin’s thought has been a touchstone, explicitly or implicitly, in numerous efforts to conceive of a ‘new’ political theology, not anchored in legitimizing and preserving power, but in justice and liberation.

He interrogates the political-theological complex from what may be construed as an opposing vantage point; whereas Schmitt excavates the theological elements in modernity in order to shore up liberalism’s illiberal inheritance, Benjamin arguably roots out these latent structures in order to dissolve them and liberate us from their oppressive legacy.

Representing a multiplicity of voices, this volume brings together a host of multifaceted contributions that explore why Benjamin has been a fertile source for thinking about political theology beyond – and often against – Schmitt.

With Benjamin as a model of how the existing genealogies of political theology can be challenged and expanded, this book makes a much wider range of work valid and available for study in this context whilst also allowing us to read his work from a new perspective.