Abstract

BETANCOURT SERRANO, Alex. Thinking about the Present and Dreaming about the Past: The Politics and History in Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project. Tabula Rasa [online]. 2008, n.8, pp.69-96. ISSN 1794-2489.

his article explores Walter Benjamin’s political and historical proposals that emerge from his Arcades Project. The essay outlines Benjamin’s criticism of historicism and presents his proposal of historical interpretation as a dream taking into account the dialectic relationship between the past and the political possibilities of the future. It is argued that the element of urgency, which implies a Benjaminian vision attached to a democratic ethos, provides us with a progressive political proposal and vision, without falling into historicist teleologies.

Keywords : Benjamin; history; historicism; politics; Benjamin; Walter; 1892-1940, criticism and interpretation; political thought.

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