London Consortium Event: Prof. Esther Leslie, Friday 24 June, 6.30 pm

Birkbeck College, Room B20, Malet Street, Bloomsbury London WC1E 7HX

Time and money , as the old adage goes, are co-articulated. This paper considers in particular the watch and the clock as they come to the fore in the writings of Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin. The significance of inflation in Benjamin’s political and moral economy is one point of investigation, which then mutates into the epoch of stabilsation and New Objectivity, an aesthetic that Benjamin castigated, but also found highly expressive of the state of the times. The paper closes with reflections on depression as screened in Brecht’s 1932 film Kuhle Wampe.

Esther Leslie is Professor of Political Aesthetics at Birkbeck College, University of London and a core faculty member of the London Consortium. She is known for her research on Walter Benjamin, as well as other writings on critical theory, cultural studies, art, and politics. Professor Leslie is an editor of the journals ‘Radical Philosophy’, ‘Revolutionary History’ and ‘Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory’.

This is the third talk in The London Consortium’s ongoing visiting speakers series.

This event is free but please RSVP for attendance: events@londonconsortium.com