As metamorfoses que o amor provoca

as relações porosas entre W. Benjamin e Asja Lacis (ou o teatro, a política e a filosofia)

Abstract

The present work aims to broadly approach some aspects of the “porous” relationship between the German philosopher Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) and the Latvian actressand play wright Asja Lacis (1891-1979). We use the concept of porosity, created by the duoin 1924, to characterize the interpenetration of affective, academic, political and artisticthemes that came to produce metamorphoses in Benjamin's work and thought and that bring the presence, often neglected, of Lacis. We aim especially to defend that, more thanthe fame of lover of the philosopher and responsible for his contact with communism and with Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), it is from the relationship with the artist and the Latvian revolutionary that, starting in the second half of the 1920s, a much more “feminine”Benjamin, with a renewed look at themes that interpenetrate, such as childhood, education,the city, politics, technique and contemporary art (with emphasis on theater).