Alex Betancourt Serrano
abs@uprrp.edu
Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras

Abstract:

This article explores Walter Benjamin’s political and historical proposals that emerge from his Arcades Project. The essay outlines Benjamin’s criticism of historicism and presents his proposal of historical interpretation as a dream taking into account the dialectic relationship between the past and the political possibilities of the future. It is argued that the element of urgency, which implies a Benjaminian vision attached to a democratic ethos, provides us with a progressive political proposal and vision, without falling into historicist teleologies.

Keywords: Benjamin, history, historicism, politics.

Keywords plus: Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940, criticism and interpretation, political thought