Bloch and Benjamin on The New and the Old

[Verne Ball]

>With regard to Benjamin and the 'New'. This is a Benjaminian category,
>inflected by Nietzsche. See for instance the Passagenwerk notes, the
>related essays in 'Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High
>Capitalism' Verso, or the essay on Surrealism. For precise quotes and sense
>of the term (which changes), I'll have to get back to you.

I'm interested in the changes that you mention?

I found Susan Buck-Morss' book _The Dialectics of Seeing_ to be really
helpful and good as a reading of Benjamin on this topic.  She brings out
the real complexity of Benjamin's conception of the new, which is
simultaneously redemptive and the image of an "eternally recurrent" Hell.

Verne Ball