Radio Benjamin: Doctor Faustus

Meet Faust before Goethe, in this radio story by German philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin, broadcasted in its original in German for children, and here read in English by artist Corey McCorkle. The historical Faust dodges fate for a time until Mephistopheles, the clever Devil, reinterprets their contract and ushers him into Hell. Another bad day for sorcery. Natural spells, secret pacts, and books of incantation lead to no deliverance from evil. 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) were 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. The independent radical publishing house Verso Books has published a nuanced translation of Radio Benjamin, and Clocktower Radio is pleased to present the recorded version of the comprehensive project for the first time in English. Read by New York artist Corey McCorkle, the 29 extant transcriptions will also be annotated with linking principle themes explored in the Arcades Project with the wild variety of subjects Benjamin outlines in these 20 minute stories.

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