Just Language
Walter Benjamin, German-Jewish Exile, and the Critique of Linguistic Violence
A new analysis of linguistic violence and resistance in the works of German-Jewish authors
Description
Just Language revisits the Weimar period and its representation in the postwar years to explore narratives of linguistic resistance in the works of Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, Hannah Arendt, and Paul Celan. How did this generation of exile writers grapple with their experiences of oppression and persecution? How did they create a language of resistance during the decades that prepared the Third Reich and the Shoah?
Facing the devastations of World War I, the book explores how Walter Benjamin analyzed language’s ability to radically break the cyclical violence of war and examines his opposition to expansionism and imperialism in Weimar education and culture. Based on Benjamin’s analysis, Johannßen traces the postwar responses of Hannah Arendt and Paul Celan. While Arendt proposed strategies of metaphorical thinking to counteract the formation of totalitarianism, Celan mobilized silence as a poetic counterforce against oppression and erasure. Just Language argues that every linguistic act and practice, no matter how small or marginalized, entails the ethical task of opposing the normalization and institutionalization of political violence. By tracing how Benjamin and his interlocutors struggled against German fascism, Johannßen presents a memory-based critique of linguistic violence, opening a dialogue between German-Jewish writers and today’s debates on nondiscrimination, propaganda, and social justice.
Dennis Johannßen is Assistant Professor of German at Lafayette College.
Reviews
“Just Language presents a sophisticated and original engagement with German-Jewish thought, centering on Walter Benjamin and situating Arendt, Adorno, and Celan in critical dialogue with his work. The book illuminates the relation between language and justice, offering a powerful reflection on writing as ethical practice and resistance to linguistic violence.”
- Ilit Ferber, Tel-Aviv University
“Forced to confront the debasement of their native tongue and the challenges of life in exile, Benjamin, Adorno, Arendt, and Celan all pondered the entanglement of language and violence, while never relinquishing the hope that the former might still have the resources to resist the latter. In this absorbing new study, Dennis Johannßen reconstructs their heroic efforts, which have only gained increased urgency in our own era of hate speech, political double-speak, and the campaigns for and against ‘woke’ language.”
- Martin Jay, UC Berkeley
“Johannßen offers an immensely engaging and insightful study of anti-oppressive language and oppositional writing in fascist and post-fascist Europe. Just Language is indispensable reading for anyone seeking to understand and contest the linguistic violence that is characteristic of authoritarian regimes and the institutions that enable them.”
- Jason Groves, University of Washington