Radio Benjamin: Cagliostro

Follow the most fantastic swindler of the Age of Enlightenment with German philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin, in a radio piece broadcasted in its original in German for children, and here read in English by artist Corey McCorkle. Listen as Cagliostro peddles a mix of Masonic and Alchemical nonsense to the aristocracies of Europe, becoming the most sought after charlatan of the 18th Century. Sleight of thought, humor, spiritual cons and prophecies abound here. Benjamin was an eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mysticism, he made enduring and influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. Walter Benjamin’s radio broadcasts (1929 - 1932) are a selection of children stories written and read by Benjamin during his colossal research project The Arcades Project, an allegorical look into the birth of modernity in 19th Century Paris. Though the series of broadcasts and the Arcades in general are decisively incomplete, the two enterprises echo one another in content, replete with provocative digressions, and unlikely connections (or "secret affinities").

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