Chronometrics in the Modern Capital: Walter Benjamin’s Fairy Tale

Abstract

. This chapter explores Walter Benjamin’s understanding of time and memory in relation to urban objects and material culture in Paris during the 19th century. The chapter focuses on Benjamin’s core reflections on time and locates his philosophy within the critique of modernity’s temporal ideology that emerged in early 20th-century literature and philosophy. The chapter analyzes underexamined entries from Benjamin’s The Arcades Project and utilizes other materials originally intended for the project, including “Some Motifs on Baudelaire” and “On the Image of Proust.” By emphasizing alternative temporalities, the chapter offers a holistic reading of the project and foregrounds modernity’s slow and uninterrupted times, thereby addressing the complexity of Benjamin’s theory of time and its relation to urban capitalist modernity.