‘NOW’: Walter Benjamin on Historical Time

Hamacher, Werner

doi:10.5949/liverpool/9780853239567.003.0009

Cited by 13 publications

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“…To capture the sense of the now, various elements of the past, he suggests, need to be blasted out of the course of positivist history in which time is seen as continuous (or within the rubric of an abstract sense of enduring time, following Kant), and realigned in a constellation of 'now' time: a dialectics at a standstill, bringing different elements of the past and present crashing together, and in which the relations of temporality itself are immanent (Hamacher, 2005). As Benjamin suggests:…”

Section: The Urban Nowmentioning

confidence: 99%

The urban now: Theorising cities beyond the new

Robinson

2013

European Journal of Cultural Studies

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Urban studies has aligned cities closely with modernity, with strong implications for their conceptualisation. Through the 20th century the founding analyses of urban studies drew on a specific (western) version of urban modernity to define universal accounts of urbanity, excluding many cities from contributing to broader theorisations of the urban. In addition, urban theory has often been inspired by the modernity of cities, identifying 'the new' as the basis for distinctive approaches to understanding cities. In the wake of the move towards a more global urban studies, the extent to which traditions of thinking cities through the inherited analytical lens of urban modernity persist needs to be considered. To counter the continuing effects of theorising from the idea of modernity, or the new, the analytical device of the 'urban now' is developed from Walter Benjamin's analysis of modernity to propose new geographies of theorising the urban.

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Section: The Urban Nowmentioning

confidence: 99%

The urban now: Theorising cities beyond the new

Robinson

2013

European Journal of Cultural Studies

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“…Murdin (1981) suggested that a rock engraving (Figure 26) at Sturts Meadows, NSW was also a supernovae, although without any supporting evidence this seems speculative. Other speculations include my own that that the 'Emu's egg' (see Figure 13) may represent a once-obvious but now vanished object in the sky, such as a supernovae, whilst Hamacher (2014b) concluded that there was no evidence that the Yolngu 'Fisherman Story' (Wells 1973b), or any other Aboriginal story, refers to a supernovae.…”

Section: Astronomical Dating Of Aboriginal Astronomymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In general, comets and meteors are viewed in many traditions, both in Australia and in other countries, as unexpected events that disrupt the orderly flow of the heavens and are therefore probably bad things (Clarke 2009a;Hamacher 2014b;Howitt 1904). Collins (1798) says of the Eora people in Sydney 'To the shooting of a star they attach a degree of importance; and I once, on an occasion of this kind, saw the girl Boo-roong greatly agitated, and prophesying much evil to befall all the white men and their habitations.…”

Section: Comets and Meteorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dawes Review 5: Australian Aboriginal Astronomy and Navigation

Norris

2016

Publ. Astron. Soc. Aust.

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The traditional cultures of Aboriginal Australians include a significant astronomical component, perpetuated through oral tradition, ceremony, and art. This astronomical knowledge includes a deep understanding of the motion of objects in the sky, which was used for practical purposes such as constructing calendars and for navigation. There is also evidence that traditional Aboriginal Australians made careful records and measurements of cyclical phenomena, recorded unexpected phenomena such as eclipses and meteorite impacts, and could determine the cardinal points to an accuracy of a few degrees. Putative explanations of celestial phenomena appear throughout the oral record, suggesting traditional Aboriginal Australians sought to understand the natural world around them, in the same way as modern scientists, but within their own cultural context. There is also a growing body of evidence for sophisticated navigational skills, including the use of astronomically based songlines. Songlines are effectively oral maps of the landscape, and are an efficient way of transmitting oral navigational skills in cultures that do not have a written language. The study of Aboriginal astronomy has had an impact extending beyond mere academic curiosity, facilitating cross-cultural understanding, demonstrating the intimate links between science and culture, and helping students to engage with science.Keywords: history and philosophy of astronomy PrefaceThe Dawes Reviews are substantial reviews of topical areas in astronomy, published by authors of international standing at the invitation of the PASA Editorial Board. The reviews recognise William Dawes (1762-1836), second lieutenant in the Royal Marines and the astronomer on the First Fleet. Dawes was not only an accomplished astronomer, but spoke five languages, had a keen interest in botany, mineralogy, engineering, cartography, and music, compiled the first Aboriginal-English dictionary, and was an outspoken opponent of slavery. Warning to Aboriginal ReadersThis paper may contain names and images of people who are deceased.

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“…Put differently, what affective time "bridges" or "mediates" is nothing other than this gap between an unhistoricisable past and history as ontologically incomplete. 24 In 1954 Jacques Lacan wrote: "History is not the past. History is the past in so far as it is historicised in the present -historicised in the present because it was lived in the past."…”

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confidence: 99%

“…As Hamacher reminds us, the German noun for redemption, Er-lösung, also connotes Lösung [release], which is part of the German word for the strictly prosaic meaning of redemption: Ein-lösung, "a redeeming […] of possibilities, which are opened with every life and are missed in every life." 24 This profane reading of messianic redemption as lucky break and modal change does not only lay bare the temporal structure of the political affect: it also alludes to the split between history and the past. Put differently, what affective time "bridges" or "mediates" is nothing other than this gap between an unhistoricisable past and history as ontologically incomplete.…”

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confidence: 99%

Where the Past Was, There History Shall Be

Khatib¹

2017

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‘NOW’: Walter Benjamin on Historical Time

Cited by 13 publications

References 0 publications

The urban now: Theorising cities beyond the new

The urban now: Theorising cities beyond the new

Dawes Review 5: Australian Aboriginal Astronomy and Navigation

Where the Past Was, There History Shall Be

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