Call for Papers: Second Issue of NEW BENJAMIN STUDIES (Brill | Fink Publishing House) “Figures of Relation in Walter Benjamin’s Writings”

Walter Benjamin’s writings are consistently marked by a distinctive relational approach, characterised by the exploration of concepts and contexts through the many relationships that both define and contextualise them. This method of reading allowed him to explore various relational figures and models, such as the constellation, the ellipse, the monad, the analogy, or the téléscopage. These figures not only describe phenomena, but they also bear an important epistemological significance for Benjamin, enabling him to trace some of the most fundamental metaphysical problems, including those concerning experience, perception, space, and temporality.

Relational frameworks and structures maintain a stable and continuous presence in his oeuvre, manifesting themselves in a wide range of contexts wherein his writings unfold, spanning history,
philosophy, politics, poetry, art history, literary criticism, and beyond. This relational approach is evident not only in Benjamin’s engagement with the philosophical and literary tradition but also in
the complex dialogue between his own ideas and those of other philosophers, poets, novelists, and cultural critics (such as Leibniz, Goethe, Hölderlin, Adorno, Kraft, or Fuchs, and others).

For the second issue of the yearbook NEW BENJAMIN STUDIES, we invite contributions in German and English of a maximum of 8,000 words that address the various figures of relation in
Benjamin’s work. We strongly encourage submissions from interdisciplinary perspectives and different intellectual and cultural contexts.

Please submit articles for consideration to new.benjamin.studies[at]gmail.com by September 15, 2024. All submissions will undergo a blind peer-review process, and authors are requested to adhere to the style sheet provided on the NEW BENJAMIN STUDIES website.

Editorial Collective | Ilit Ferber (Tel Aviv), Stefano Marchesoni (Milano), Alexandra Richter (Berlin/Rouen), Nassima Sahraoui (Frankfurt), Sebastian Truskolaski (Manchester/Berlin)

*NEW BENJAMIN STUDIES is a peer-reviewed yearbook dedicated to current research into the thought and writing of Walter Benjamin. Publishing articles by both emerging and established scholars, the yearbook aims to foster novel approaches to the work of the German writer. Through annual thematic issues, New Benjamin Studies provides a unique platform for exchange among scholars from various parts of the world, offering an insight into the rich variety of present-day readings of Benjamin’s oeuvre. New Benjamin Studies
welcomes innovative contributions from all fields of the humanities and beyond.

Advisory Board | Antonia Birnbaum (Paris/Vienna), Howard Caygill (London), Rebecca Comay (Toronto), Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky (Bochum), Howard Eiland (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Peter Fenves (Evanston), Eli Friedlander (Tel-Aviv), Jeanne-Marie Gagnebin (São Paulo), Michael Jennings (Princeton), Gertrud Koch (Berlin), Esther Leslie (London), Vivian Liska (Antwerp), Noëleen Murray (Pretoria), Pablo Oyarzún Robles (Santiago de Chile), Andrea Pinotti (Milan), Gerard Raulet (Paris), Thomas Regehly (Offenbach), Gerhard Richter (Providence), Sigrid Weigel (Berlin), Irving Wohlfarth (Bremen/Paris)