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Married life, gay life as a work of art, and eternal life: Toward a biopolitical reading of Benjamin
This article examines the motif of eternal life in Walter Benjamin's work. Whereas myth understands natality and sexuality as characterized by guilt and deserving of death, this article argues that Benjamin seeks to develop an alternative conception of life that is no longer caught up in guilt and thus no longer fated to die-this is the idea of eternal life. By offering a reading of Benjamin's essay on Goethe's Elective Affinities, the article maintains that for Benjamin the possibility of eternal life was always linked to a sexual politics that turns around the problematization of heterosexual, patriarchal conceptions of married life. The outlines of this sexual politics are then further traced in his later work on Baudelaire and compared with Foucault's reading of Baudelaire in the context of working out an idea of life as a work of art. Copyright © 2011 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.
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Journal
Philosophy and RhetoricVolume
44Issue
4Pagination
309 - 335Publisher DOI
ISSN
0031-8213eISSN
1527-2079Publication classification
C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journalUsage metrics
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Keywords
Arts & HumanitiesLiteraturePhilosophyGerman literature1900-1999Benjamin, Walter(1892-1940)0000 0001 2101 0732criticism\"Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften\"\"Charles Baudelaire: Ein Lyriker im Zeitalter des Hochkapitalismus\"eternal lifesexual politicshomosexualityFoucault, Michel(1926-1984)0000 0001 2146 278XFrench literatureprosePhilosophy
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