WALTER BENJAMIN THE PRODUCTION OF AN INTELLECTUAL FIGURE by SANDRA VIVIAN BERT A HOENLE B.A., with Distinction, The University of Calgary, 1977 M.A., The University of Calgary, 1987 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES Department of Educational Studies We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH. COLUMBIA December 1999 © Sandra Vivian Berta Hoenle, 1999 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada DE-6 (2788) 11 Abstract Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), a twentieth-century Jewish-German intellectual, has recently achieved iconic status; however, during his lifetime, many scholars considered him to be a failure. This substantial shift in scholarly attitude invites questions concerning how intellectual figures are understood and constructed within academia. Cultural studies has renewed and enlarged the sphere of interest in Benjamin's work while, at the same time, canonizing and thus freezing it. This dissertation addresses the non-canonical side of the production of Walter Benjamin and, in so doing, shows what traditional scholarship has overlooked — the effect of the so-called "private" sphere on so-called "public" intellectuals. The dominant model for traditional scholarly studies remains both abstract and linear: it consists of tracing the influence of one (usually male) scholar upon another. This dissertation disrupts the tacit assumptions behind such an approach to knowledge by showing how intellectuals are produced both by and at the intersections of the public and the private. The general scholarly acceptance of this false dichotomy, commonly referred to as the public/private split, has resulted in viewing scholars as though they exist in an abstract realm of ideas rather than in a concrete realm of lived reality. I draw on and add to the insights of feminist and cultural studies scholars who have attempted to show how people's interested contradictory locations, defined, as they are, by class, religion, ethnicity, gender, and so on, intersect with and affect their publicly constructed identities. To this end, my study provides a concrete example of how one particular intellectual, Walter Benjamin, has been (and continues to be) produced within specific historical, social, and cultural contexts. iii Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements , iv Dedication v Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Literature Overview: Identifying the Issues 18 Introduction 18 Overview 22 Conclusion 50 Chapter 2 Personal Genealogy: Methodology and Theory 52 Chapter 3 Benjamin's Social and Familial Situation 72 Dora Sophie Kellner/Pollak/Benjamin/Morser and the Discourse of the Wife 88 Chapter 4 Boundaries of Knowledge: Benjamin as a "Failure" 110 Chapter 5 Capri, 1924: Lacis and Benjamin: Porous Lines of Demarcation . 143 Chapter 6 Lacis, Moscow and Radio Pedagogy 186 Chapter 7 Conclusion 216 Works Cited and Consulted 224 iv Acknowledgements I would like to sincerely thank my advisor, Dr. Leslie Roman, and my research committee, Dr. Jean Barman, Dr. Steven Taubeneck, and Dr. Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, for all of their extremely valuable assistance and support during the various stages of the prolonged gestation and difficult birth of this dissertation. In particular, I wish to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Leslie Roman for her guidance through my explorations of feminist theories and critical pedagogies and for her continued energetic support throughout the duration of this project. My heartfelt thanks go to Dr. Florentine Strzelczyk for her friendship and unwavering support. I would also like to convey my indebtedness to Ms. Joanne Richardson and Ms. Rosvita Vaska. Finally, I wish to express my loving gratitude to my husband, Jiirgen Bahr, who unquestioningly assumed the role of "wife" whenever there were insufficient hours in the day for me to contribute to the running of our household, and who has steadfastly supported me in a multitude of ways. V Dedication This dissertation is dedicated with love to my mother, Inge Geider. Her unconditional love together with her support for this and all of my endeavours has helped me step through doors of possibility that were held shut to her by her own historical, social, and cultural contexts. 1 Introduction This project is located at the intersection of cultural studies and critical pedagogy — interdisciplinary fields that have developed in similar and often parallel ways during the past two decades. These two areas understand culture as process rather than product, and they characterize knowledge production as one instance of cultural production. I contend that these two areas intersect at numerous points that can and should be brought into productive dialogue with one another. Proceeding from this shared conception of culture and knowledge, this study examines ways of understanding intellectual figures according to the premise, again common to both fields, that identity and subjectivity are formed in and by every sphere of existence. Moreover, these spheres are all social sites that depend on cultural conditions (Johnson 11). The subject of this analysis is Walter Benjamin, a figure whose work has been used and examined in both fields and, therefore, may function to show how and where they intersect. While there are numerous ways of defining cultural studies and critical pedagogy, the definitions relevant to this study are those that are derived from the work of the Birmingham Centre of Cultural Studies. These fields have four things in common: First, both fields are interdisciplinary. While disciplinary work places its subjects of study within specific, established frameworks and methodologies, positioning them with regard to the work of others within that discipline, interdisciplinary studies occur at the intersection of various disciplines, bringing new insights that may not be seen from within a single discipline. From this it follows that each examined subject is embedded within its own specific context and that each new cultural context suggests a particular methodological constellation rather than a new method or theory (Denham, Kacandes, and Petropoulos 16; emphasis in original). Both fields also examine not only a chosen object of study, but also the means by which knowledge about that subject is determined; that is, they attempt to understand the problematic nature of knowledge claims (Michel 2 33) by examining knowledge not as a product but as a process. They do not seek "truth"; rather, they attempt to understand how "truth" is produced, and they do this by taking a critical attitude towards both their objects of study and their own practices (Taubeneck 162). This pronounced shift of attention from product to process is accompanied by a pedagogical shift from transmission, mastery, and reproduction to interaction, critical engagement, and production. The second thing that both fields have in common is that they generally agree with Stuart Hall's definition of culture as "both the meanings and values which arise amongst distinctive groups and classes, on the basis of their given historical conditions and relationships through which they 'handle' and respond to the conditions of existence; arid as the lived traditions and practices through which these 'understandings' are expressed and in which they are embodied" ("Cultural Studies; Two Paradigms" 527; emphasis in original). Consequently, culture is understood not in terms of artefacts or objects, but in terms of numerous processes simultaneously occurring within all social spheres. Thus cultural objects, such as texts, are not examined for what they are but, rather, for why and how a society has labelled them in certain ways (e.g., as beautiful or true) (Kacandes 11; emphasis in original). The analysis of cultural processes occurs within an understanding of culture as primarily relational. Yet these relations represent neither harmony nor homogeneity but, rather, a creative tension between possibly contradictory elements (Denham, Kacandes, and Petropoulos 16). Such tension facilitates the detection and understanding of the dynamics of cultural processes. Given that culture is comprised of numerous relational processes, there can be no final answers to questions, as processes continually shift and change. Consequently, both fields are engaged in projects that, by definition, can never be completed. The third thing that cultural studies and critical pedagogy have in common is their general perception that education is closely linked to culture. As Richard Johnson has argued, cultural studies and educational practices and processes are interdependent (6). Investigations concerning 3 education ask questions relating to how, by whom, and for whom knowledge is produced and disseminated. Related to education are issues concerning intellectuals. Within the two fields under discussion, the intellectual is understood as a cultural phenomenon inhabiting a particular subject position. As