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Walter Benjamin in Gotham City: on pure violence

Abstract

This paper briefly reflects on the ideas of pure violence and effective state of exception according to the thought of Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), proposing in section II the hypothesis that these concepts are the result of a deep reflection which begins with the essay Critique of violence (1921), goes through the dense fragment The destructive character (1931) and arrives at the Theses on the concept of history (1940), when Benjamin clearly realizes the impossibility of negotiating with the liberal-democratic institutions, which work as decelerator structures (katéchonta) of the coming time, reading that is presented in section I through the profanation of the original Schmitt's concept. Then the article in section III interprets Benjamin's ideas in a fictional scenario - the Batman trilogy by Christopher Nolan - which seems more terribly real every day, concluding with an agambenian paragraph about the coming law (section IV).

Keywords:
Walter Benjamin; Katéchon; State of exception; Pure violence; Batman; Coming law.

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