Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) was a German philosopher, essayist and critic whose work has grown in relevance and importance in the 75 years since his death by suicide on the French-Spanish border as Nazi invaders drew near. In his possession: a mysterious suitcase, now lost. The University of Chester’s Alan Wall examines many of the recent contexts for discussions of Benjamin and offers detailed explanations for the overdue resurgence of interest in this important writer. Alan Wall studied at Oxford and teaches at the University of Chester. For the past several years, he has been writing about Benjamin for The Fortnightly Review. The aim of this collection of essays is to use some of the key concepts of Walter Benjamin in order to describe aspects of contemporary culture and politics. The chapters in this volume:

• Part One: Uneven and Combined Development
  
• Part Two: Texting: Ancient and Modern
  
• Part Three: Bad Reading Habits
  -Part Four: Spadefuls of Meaning
  -Part Five: Walter Benjamin and Aby Warburg – Photographs of Heaven, Photographs of Hell
  
• Part Six: The ‘Canonicity’ of Kafka
  
• Part Seven: Baudelaire, Allegory and the Aura
  
• Part Eight: Benjamin’s Angel and His ‘Theses’
  
• Part Nine: Benjamin and Surrealism
  
• Part Ten: Benjamin and the City

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