Walter Benjamin's "Über den Begriff der Geschichte" and the Marxist Tradition

Abstract

Walter Benjamin's Theses on the Concept of History (1942) have long puzzled Benjamin scholars due to several of its stylistic and thematic departures from earlier works. In this paper, I evaluate the relation of the text to the rest of Benjamin’s thought, as well as the various schools of interpretation surrounding it. I then use that initial framework in order to place Benjamin’s text in conversation with other Marxist texts (so as to demonstrate parallel lines of thought between Benjamin’s latter works and the earlier Marxist tradition). By examining certain key texts in the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe, or MEGA, I indicate the ways in which Marx engaged with many of the same questions and themes as Benjamin's Theses, and, in doing so, argue against the dominant interpretation that sees this text as a break with Benjamin's prior Marxist, political commitments.