Walter Benjamin's work represents one of the most radical and
controversial responses to the problems of twentieth-century culture and
society. This new interpretation analyzes some of the central enigmatic
features of his writing, arguing that they result from the co-presence
of religious scepticism and the desire for a religious foundation of
social life. Margarete Kohlenbach focuses on the structure of
self-reference as an expression of Benjamin's sceptical religiosity and
examines its significance in his writing on language, literature and the
cinema, as well as history, politics and modern technology.