Gustav Landauer

The concept of 'community' (Gemeinschaft) runs like a thread through many of Benjamin's writings... Although Benjamin never systematically expounds the concept of community per se, his frequent use of the word is consistent with his wider effort to recast the sense in which alternative forms of sociality might be conceived-be it in terms of 'The Storyteller's 'community of listeners' or in terms of the city as 'the first communio', as noted in The Arcades Project. In other words, there is a sense in which Benjamin's concept of community, alongside its cognate terms, marks a nodal point: an opportunity to rethink the interplay of language, history, and politics in the register of what is common. This two-day workshop will take the concept of 'community' as it appears in a selection of texts, including (but not limited to) the ones noted above, as a starting point for a broader exploration of the 'actuality' of Benjamin's thought-its Aktualität. As in previous years, the workshop will be organised around close readings of short, selected text passages in which these matters will be traced over the course of Benjamin's earlier writings, as well as his later thought, probing the currency of his reflections for the present moment. In short: we intend to focus on the question what Benjamin's concept of community means for us today-and how we might understand its continuing or renewed currency.

For this workshop we will be joined by HOWARD CAYGILL (Kingston University London).

Since the event revolves around intensive reading sessions, some prior knowledge of Benjamin's philosophical writings is strongly encouraged. Bilingual, German-English copies of the texts will be made available. To facilitate the discussion, the number of participants for this workshop is limited. If you are interested in participating, please send a message and a brief biographical note to the organisers before 1 May, 2022.

The violent death of Landauer in May 1919 at the end of the Räterepublik of Munich left
several of his best friends with a terrible feeling: a sense of tension between the unique
hopes incarnated by Landauer and the spiritual and political void his passing left behind.
This article is an attempt to capture the tragic shift from a living revolutionary who projected his unique anarchist views onto the failed Munich Revolution to the efforts of a group of close friends who searched to save their dear Landauer from the infamy of failure, making of his months in Munich and his death an important amendment to his spiritual and political legacy.