SoL - Esther Leslie
Monday 10th of February, 6.30pm
An evening with Esther Leslie
Throughout her research and publications Esther Leslie has returned again and again to Walter Benjamin, tracing and ‘challenging stereotypical images of Benjamin as the tragic and lonely intellectual figure’; as well as connecting to the social, political and economic context of the post WWI Germany. While at the break of the War Benjamin was quite young and had just written “The Metaphysics of Youth”, in the aftermath of the war many of his early notions found a new maturation. In her recent research, Esther Leslie connects Benjamin’s writings to the alteration of the notion of experience (Erlebnis) after the First World War, now a hundred years ago. How can shifts of language still relate to different contemporaneities? How can the pulverisation of experience, as in the case of war, be passed down from mouth to ear onto different generations?
We invite Esther Leslie to talk about her recent research, the importance of youth movements at the break of the Great War as well as about her long involvement with the writings of Walter Benjamin.
Esther Leslie is professor in political aesthetics at Birkbeck University of London and has written extensively about Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, a.o. in: ‘Walter Benjamin: Overpowering Conformism’ (Pluto, 2000); ‘Walter Benjamin’ (Reaktion, 2007); and her translation of ‘Walter Benjamin: The Archives’ (Unkant, 2007). Other research interests include the poetics of science, European literary and visual modernism and avant-gardes, animation, colour and madness. Besides, she is an editor of the magazines ‘Historical Materialism: Research in critical Marxist Theory’; Radical Philosophy’ and ‘Revolutionary History’. Based upon her research on animation history (‘Hollywood Flatalnds, Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant Garde’ (Verso, 2002)), Leslie has recently written on contemporary artists such as Ed Atkins and Jordan Wolfson. She is also a contributor for Afterall Journal. Her publications have been quite important for our program here at rongwrong.
- This conversation takes place within the context of the ongoing program ‘School of Life: Things we do not learn in school’ and 'The Metaphysics of Youth' and is generously supported by Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst. -
An evening with Esther Leslie
Throughout her research and publications Esther Leslie has returned again and again to Walter Benjamin, tracing and ‘challenging stereotypical images of Benjamin as the tragic and lonely intellectual figure’; as well as connecting to the social, political and economic context of the post WWI Germany. While at the break of the War Benjamin was quite young and had just written “The Metaphysics of Youth”, in the aftermath of the war many of his early notions found a new maturation. In her recent research, Esther Leslie connects Benjamin’s writings to the alteration of the notion of experience (Erlebnis) after the First World War, now a hundred years ago. How can shifts of language still relate to different contemporaneities? How can the pulverisation of experience, as in the case of war, be passed down from mouth to ear onto different generations?
We invite Esther Leslie to talk about her recent research, the importance of youth movements at the break of the Great War as well as about her long involvement with the writings of Walter Benjamin.
Esther Leslie is professor in political aesthetics at Birkbeck University of London and has written extensively about Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, a.o. in: ‘Walter Benjamin: Overpowering Conformism’ (Pluto, 2000); ‘Walter Benjamin’ (Reaktion, 2007); and her translation of ‘Walter Benjamin: The Archives’ (Unkant, 2007). Other research interests include the poetics of science, European literary and visual modernism and avant-gardes, animation, colour and madness. Besides, she is an editor of the magazines ‘Historical Materialism: Research in critical Marxist Theory’; Radical Philosophy’ and ‘Revolutionary History’. Based upon her research on animation history (‘Hollywood Flatalnds, Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant Garde’ (Verso, 2002)), Leslie has recently written on contemporary artists such as Ed Atkins and Jordan Wolfson. She is also a contributor for Afterall Journal. Her publications have been quite important for our program here at rongwrong.
- This conversation takes place within the context of the ongoing program ‘School of Life: Things we do not learn in school’ and 'The Metaphysics of Youth' and is generously supported by Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst. -
