Welcome and Introduction: Gerhard Richter and Bernd Witte (1:30 pm - 2:00 pm)

Section 1: Frontiers of Understanding (2:00 pm - 6:30 pm)
Moderator: Bernd Witte

1. Michael Jennings (Princeton University)
                Vanishing Script: Benjamin, Modern Media, and Palimpsestic Writing

2. Mauro Ponzi (University of Rome)
                The Power of Rapture: Walter Benjamin and Nietzsche

3. Sven Kramer (Universität Lüneburg)
                Benjamin, Adorno, and the Hermeneutic Circle
               
4. Gerhard Richter (University of California, Davis)
                Can Anything Be Rescued by Defending It? Benjamin with Adorno




THURSDAY, 13 NOVEMBER 2008

Section 2: Benjamin Beyond Europe (9:00 am - 12:30 pm)
Moderator: Karl Solibakke

1. Willi Bolle (University of Sao Paolo)
                Paris on the Amazon: The Physiognomy of the City of Belém through Categories of Benjamin's Arcades

2. Vittoria Borsò (University of Düsseldorf)
                Benjamin in Central America

3. Vivian Liska (University of Antwerp) and Tamara Eisenberg (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)
                A Travel Guide to Palestine: Walter Benjamin in Israel


Section 3: Transcriptions: Benjamin and the Media (2:00 pm - 6:30 pm)
Moderator: Vivian Liska

1. Liliane Weissberg (University of Pennsylvania)
                Paper Missives

2. Udi Greenberg (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)
                Figures and Figurations: Benjamin in Popular Media

3. Christine Ivanovic (University of Tokyo)
                Benjaminian Transformations in Yoko Tawada's "Saint George and the Translator"
                       
4. Isaac Tubb (University of California, Santa Barbara)
                Musical Figurations of Melancholia in Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch




FRIDAY, 14 NOVEMBER 2008

Section 4: Transcriptions: Benjamin, Visual Culture, and the Archive (9:00 am - 12:30 pm)
Moderator: Bernhard Greiner

1. Hubertus von Amelunxen (European School of Visual Arts, Angoulême/Poitiers)
                Translating Photography

2. Rolf Goebel (University of Alabama, Huntsville)
                Exploding the Urban Prison-World with the Dynamite of the Split Second: Technologically Mediated Travel from Benjamin to Baudrillard and Virilio

3. Alexander Gelley (University of California, Irvine)
                Entering the Passagen


Section 5: Transforming the Present, Models for the 21st Century (2:00 pm - 6:30 pm)
Moderator: Gerhard Richter

1. Bernhard Greiner (University of Tübingen)
                Aestheticization of Politics? Walter Benjamin's Reflections on Pure Violence Outside the Law

2. Karl Solibakke (Syracuse University)
                Walter Benjamin and Theoretical Models for Transatlantic Memory Studies

3. Daniel Weidner (Zentrum für Literaturforschung, Berlin)
                Reading Sacredness: Walter Benjamin and the "Religious Turn" in Current Theory
                       
4. Andrew Benjamin (Monash University, Melbourne)
                Thinking as Transformation: Benjamin and the Present