Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities

Walter Benjamin, Constellations. Translated by Adam Lipszyc i A. Wołkowicz. WUJ, Kraków 2012.

This work by Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) is one of the fundamental frames of reference for all of the contemporary humanities. The following selection includes the most important theoretical sketches by the author of the Arcades Project, as well as his most momentous works of literary criticism, which often were highly charged philosophically. This volume consists of unusual reflections on language, myth and history; the task of a translator and literary critic; as well as masterful analyses of the works of Goethe, Krause, Kafka and Baudelaire. The collected texts are an inexhaustible goldmine of exciting ideas, and at the same time an indispensible source of information about Benjamin's particular conceptuality and the most essential aims of his intellectual efforts. All the sketches are presented in new translations that are to present both the literary dimension of Benjamin's works and the precision of his thought.