num_pages: 184
description: An illuminated tour of Walter Benjamin's ideas; a graphic translation; an encyclopedia of fragments. Walter Benjamin was a man of letters an art critic an essayist a translator a philosopher a collector and an urban flneur. In his writings he ambles samples and explores. With Walter Benjamin Reimagined  Frances Cannon offers a visual and literary response to Benjamin's work. With detailed and dreamlike pen-and-ink drawings and hand-lettered text Cannon gives readers an illuminated tour of Walter Benjamin's thoughtsa graphic translation an encyclopedia of fragments. Cannon has not created a guide to Benjamin's greatest ideasthis is not an illustrated Walter Benjamin cheat sheetbut rather a beautifully rendered work of graphic literature. Cannon doesn't plod through thickets of minutiae; she strollsa flneuse herselfusing Benjamin's words and her own drawings to construct a creative topography of Benjamin's writing. Phrases from Unpacking My Library for example are accompanied by images of flying papers stray books stacked booksbooks not yet touched by the mild boredom of orderand a bearded mage. Cannon takes the reader through different periods of Benjamin's Artifacts of Youth nostalgic musings on his childhood; Fragments of a Critical Eye early writings political observations and cultural criticism; Athenaeum of Imagination meditations on philosophy and psychology; A Stroll through the Arcades Benjamin's unfinished magnum opus; and A Collection of Dreams and Stories experimental and fantastical writings. With drawings and text Cannon offers a phantasmagorical tribute to Benjamin's wandering eye.
language: English
title: Walter Benjamin Reimagined: A Graphic Translation of Poetry, Prose, Aphorisms, and Dreams
publisher: The MIT Press