Radio Benjamin: Naples

Here philosopher Walter Benjamin takes us on a tour of Naples—a city saturated with noise and food—in this gorgeous accounting of the city's street life. Naples is home to the largest "Arcade" in Europe (a covered passageway with arches). These open enclosures for commerce would fascinate Benjamin throughout the 1920s and 30s. In Naples, we hear masterful flânerie (dawdling) matched by a fascination for everyday life. Benjamin also offers his great analysis of idleness and lotto. 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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