Anke Gleber examines one of the most intriguing and characteristic
figures of European urban modernity: the observing city stroller, or
flaneur. In an age transformed by industrialism, the flaneur drifted
through city streets, inspired and repelled by the surrounding scenes of
splendor and squalor. Gleber examines this often elusive figure in the
particular contexts of Weimar Germany and the intellectual sphere of
Walter Benjamin, with whom the concept of flanerie is often associated.
She sketches the European influences that produced the German flaneur
and establishes the figure as a pervasive presence in Weimar culture, as
well as a profound influence on modern perceptions of public space.
The book begins by exploring the theory of literary flanerie and the
technological changes--street lighting, public transportation, and the
emergence of film--that gave a new status to the activities of seeing
and walking in the modern city. Gleber then assesses the place of
flanerie in works by Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer, and other
representatives of Weimar literature, arts, and theory. She draws
particular attention to the works of Franz Hessel, a Berlin flaneur who
argued that flanerie is a "reading" of the city that perceives
passersby, streets, and fleeting impressions as the transitory signs of
modernity. Gleber also examines connections between flanerie and Weimar
film, and discusses female flanerie as a means of asserting female
subjectivity in the public realm.
The book is a deeply original and searching reassessment of the complex
intersections among modernity, vision, and public space.
