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Toward the Critique of Violence in 1920s and 2020s Schedule of Events

May 11, 2022

MONDAY MAY 23RD, 2022

Norris Lake Room 9am - 1pm

Kresge 2415 - 2pm - 6pm

 

Schedule of Events

 

9:00-9:45 AM  - Norris Lake Room

Jörg Kreienbrock (Northwestern): Welcome  

 

Julia Ng (Goldsmiths), Peter Fenves (Northwestern): Opening Remarks  

 
 I. “Toward the Critique of Violence” in Relation to Literary Critiques of Violence 

 

10:00-11:15 AM - Norris Lake Room

 

Omoyemi Ajisebutu (Northwestern): “Toward the Critique of Violence” in Chinua Achebe’s  

Arrow of God  

Maggie Marusek (FU Berlin): Putting the Myth in Mythical Violence: Musil’s Take on Violence  

and the Law  

Miriam Bilsker (University of Chicago): Literary Tropes, Mythic Repetition: Benjaminian Fate in  

the Poetry of Sandra Simonds  

 

II. The Textuality of “Toward the Critique of Violence” 

 

11:30 AM-1:00 PM - Norris Lake Room

 

Yu-jin Chang (Emerson): Janus Words: Auto-antonymic Ambiguity in Benjamin’s “Toward the  

Critique of Violence”  

Timothy Cannon (Northwestern): God’s Judgment on Korah’s Horde  

Bernardo Barzana (Northwestern): Darstellung in Benjamin’s “Toward Critique of Violence”:  

Presentation, Representation, Performance  

Timothy Messen (Emory): Toward Non-Stupid Tautology and Non-Demonic Ambiguity  

 

LUNCH BREAK  

 

III.            “Toward the Critique of Violence” Today 

 

2:00-3:15 PM - Kresge 2415

 

Jonas Heller (University of Chicago/Frankfurt: The Force of Powerlessness: Acting Beyond  

Power, according to Walter Benjamin 

Matthew Gilmore (Northwestern): Earth, Heavenly Body: Geo-Ethics in Walter Benjamin’s 

 “Toward the Critique of Violence” (and Elsewhere)  

Ashley Bohrer (Notre Dame): Walter Benjamin and Abolitionism in Theory and Practice  

 

COFFEE BREAK 

 

  1. “Toward the Critique of Violence” under the Optic of Marx, Freud, and Du Bois

3:45-5:00 PM - Kresge 2415

 

Christian Obst (Brown): Wald und Gewalt: A Critical Forest Excursion with Marx  

Eleonora Giannisi Antonakaki (Northwestern): Technologies of Violence and their Destruction 

Marlon Millner (Northwestern): Dark Violence and Black Critique: Reading Walter Benjamin’s  

“Toward the Critique of Violence” with W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction  

 

5:15-6:00 PM: - Kresge 2415

Closing Discussion among Audience and Participants