Words of Light: Theses on the Photography of History [Hardcover]

Eduardo Cadava (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 25, 1996

This text demonstrates that Walter Benjamin articulates his conception of history through the language of photography. Focusing on Benjamin's discussions of the flashes and images of history, it argues that the questions raised by this link between photography and history touch on issues that belong to the entire trajectory of Benjamin's writings: the historical and political consequences of technology, the relation between reproduction and mimesis, images and history, remembering and forgetting, allegory and mourning, and visual and linguistic representation. The book establishes the photographic constellation of motifs and themes around which Benjamin organizes his texts, thereby becoming a lens through which we one can begin to view his analysis of the convergence between the new technological media and a revolutionary concept of historical action and understanding.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Cadava presents a series of sensitive meditations on Benjamin's work, in which, like Benjamin himself, he explores the mass image and its role in the making of popular memory." -- The Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher

Here Eduardo Cadava demonstrates that Walter Benjamin articulates his conception of history through the language of photography. Focusing on Benjamin's discussions of the flashes and images of history, he argues that the questions raised by this link between photography and history touch on issues that belong to the entire trajectory of his writings: the historical and political consequences of technology, the relation between reproduction and mimesis, images and history, remembering and forgetting, allegory and mourning, and visual and linguistic representation. The book establishes the photographic constellation of motifs and themes around which Benjamin organizes his texts and thereby becomes a lens through which we can begin to view his analysis of the convergence between the new technological media and a revolutionary concept of historical action and understanding.

Written in the form of theseswhat Cadava calls "snapshots in prose" the book memorializes Benjamin's own thetic method of writing. It enacts a mode of conceiving history that is neither linear nor successive, but rather discontinuousconstructed from what Benjamin calls "dialectical images." In this way, it not only suggests the essential rapport between the fragmentary form of Benjamin's writing and his effort to write a history of modernity but it also skillfully clarifies the relation between Benjamin and his contemporaries, the relation between fascism and aesthetic ideology. It gives us the most complete picture to date of Benjamin's reflections on history.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (November 25, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691034508
• ISBN-13: 978-0691034508
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,244,226 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars We are all made of "stars", February 26, 2003

By 

Shawn Wedel (Kirkwood, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Words of Light (Paperback)

A challenging, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately satisfying interaction with the works of Walter Benjamin. Sifting through the "flashes," "stars," "lightning" and "ghosts" that ignite, light and haunt Benjamin's disjointed philosophies, Cadava has penned a highly respectful tome reflecting and furthering the thoughts of this enigmatic, doomed thinker.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars painful, October 30, 2006

By 

c.b. - See all my reviews

This review is from: Words of Light (Paperback)

While Cadava has some interesting insights into Benjamin's thought and the terms in which he couched his conception of history, the text leaves a lot to be desired. The writing style is high academic by way of Derrida, and by focusing exclusively on photography as a Benjamin's vehicle of history, Cadava elides over much of the near-mystical "flashes" of insight that characterize Benjamin's later work. Read the "Arcades Project" first and come to your own conclusions before reading this book.

2 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars photography as differance, October 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Words of Light: Theses on the Photography of History (Hardcover)

Cadava's Theses are illuminious! But It was, as I remember, once seen in the reading of Derrida's "Differance". However similiar it may be, history captured by photography has given insights for me. In fact I was confused with the difference between J. Baudrillard and Derrida. Reading Cadava's theses, particular the 'between either ... or', I could percieve the meaning of Derrida's 'quasi-transcendantal' and 'survie'. Of course, J. Derrida not identical with Cadava, but I think the spacing and temporization of differance was behind historicity of photography. Finally, between light and darkness, there is points. That it!