Baudelaire Contra Benjamin

This book offers the first sustained argument against the philosophy of Walter Benjamin and his readings of Charles Baudelaire. Drawing upon the existential insights of Baudelaire it is also a critique of politicized aesthetics, and cultural Marxism, of which Benjamin is a pioneering and emblematic figure.

Beibei Guan assistant professor of English at Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen. Wayne Cristaudo is professor of political science at Charles Darwin University.

Chapter One Political and Artistic Divides in Baudelaire. Chapter Two The Diabolical Character of Modern Political Redemption. Chapter Three Benjamin's Politicized Aesthetics. Chapter Four The God's Eye View of the Historical Materialist. Chapter Five Paris, Melancholy and Phantasmagoria: Economic Determinations or a Human Soul-scape? Chapter Six Flâneurs - Baudelaire's Urban Self-Makers, Benjamin's Accomplices of Commodity Capitalism, and Redeeming Rag-pickers. Chapter Seven Baudelaire's "Depraved" View of Women and Benjamin's Redemption of Commodified Fallen Women.