Towards a disrupted idleness Literary transmission and the crisis of experience in Walter Benjamin

Abstract

Walter Benjamin’s contributions to the study of leisure seem to remain untouched by the growing interest on his work. This article shall try to show how the concepts of leisure and idleness are closely related to some of the most important conceptual threads of his writing. The role Benjamin ascribes to the different modes of literary transmission in shaping experience shall be discussed, and the relative position and function of leisure shall be identified. Finally, an interpretation of the task of leisure in the emancipatory orientation of Benjamin’s work will be suggested.