TY  - CHAP
AB  - Purpose This paper shows that the collector (like the flâneur) is a decisive character in Walter Benjamin’s philosophy of history, specifically in the manifestation of the historical materialist, yet the paper is not so much about the collector or collecting as it is about the commodity and the experience thereof in consumer society.Methodology/approach The section “The Dream World of Mass Culture” discusses mass culture and the central problem of commodity fetishism as Benjamin sees it. The section “A Physiognomist of ‘the World of Things’” discusses the critical task of the historical materialist actualized and made possible through an activity akin to collecting. The section “Collecting, Child’s Play, and Seeing Similarities” illuminates the central importance of the activity of collecting for Benjamin’s research regarding mass culture, historical materialism, and the experience of modernity itself. The final section explains and fleshes out the central concepts of the mimetic faculty and physiognomic perception for Benjamin.Findings I find that, ultimately, to understand the ability of the historical materialist to witness history critically, according to Benjamin, is to understand the historical materialist as a collector. To understand the revolutionary activity of collecting is to understand collecting as a manifestation of a fundamental activity of human nature, the inclination to become “like” or to become “similar.” But such an impulse grounds, for Benjamin, not only the activity of collecting but also collective experience, the collective conscious, mass culture, and the essence of the commodity itself as a sociocultural artifact. The paper demonstrates that the mimetic faculty is the primary human faculty Benjamin focused on in his theory of experience.Originality/value The originality of this paper lies in the fact that it illustrates the primary importance of the theory of the mimetic faculty, the notion of physiognomic perception, and the work of Heinz Werner to Walter Benjamin’s theory of commodity fetishism that to date has been largely underdeveloped. But, more importantly, the paper shows that Benjamin’s theory of experience could illuminate a path toward developing a theory of experience within a fundamental philosophical anthropology.
VL  - 17
SN  - 978-1-78560-323-5, 978-1-78560-322-8/0885-2111
DO  - 10.1108/S0885-211120150000017011
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/S0885-211120150000017011
AU  - Skees Murray
PY  - 2015
Y1  - 2015/01/01
TI  - Memories Standing Outside of the Self: The Commodity, the Collector, and Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Experience
T2  - Consumer Culture Theory
T3  - Research in Consumer Behavior
PB  - Emerald Group Publishing Limited
SP  - 223
EP  - 254
Y2  - 2024/04/25
ER  -