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X Walter Benjamin Summer School: Rethinking the violence of today's world
Multiple activities will be held in Portbou in a new edition of the Walter Benjamin Summer School.
From September 5 to 7, 2025, Portbou will host the tenth edition of the Walter Benjamin Summer School, which this year will be entitled Rethinking the Violence of the Today's World from Benjamin . The program will feature interventions by Cari Oriol Serres, Pau Pedragosa, Clàudia Kálasz, Jaime Cuenca, Mila Guillet Sariol, Stefania Fantauzzi and Valentín Roma, organized by Angelus Novus Casa Walter Benjamin and Passatges Cultura Contemporània.
Benjamin, fleeing Nazi persecution, crossed the Pyrenees on foot from France to Portbou in September 1940. There, unable to continue to Spain and Portugal due to the political and administrative circumstances of the time, he committed suicide. In the Catalan town there is the Passatges memorial by the artist Dani Karavan, the name of the town and that of the thinker are associated with critical reflection, exile, historical memory and philosophy, but also with the Walter Benjamin Summer Listening.
Since 2016, every September we have celebrated the Walter Benjamin Summer School, a series of days of reflection on the figure, work and thought of the philosopher, in the place where his life's journey was suddenly cut short after crossing the Pyrenees on foot, on the border between France and Catalonia.
Tenth edition that coincides with the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the 50th anniversary of the death of Hannah Arendt. The 10th Walter Benjamin Summer School uses Benjamin's thought as a starting point to analyze violence in today's society. The program will cover topics such as violence in the art and literature of the Weimar Republic, the concepts of Gewalt (violence/power) and Kritik (criticism) in Benjamin, as well as the contributions of thinkers such as Hannah Arendt on political violence. As a multidisciplinary event, it will also include poetry, an artistic workshop, sound performance, film screening and art exhibition, under the direction of Pilar Parcerisas, Cari Oriol Serres and Vicent Ordóñez.
Among the highlighted activities are the poetry recital of Germany between the wars by local actors, the art exhibition-workshop by Gonzalo Elvira entitled Walter Benjamin in Ibiza and Benjamin between pages and books which opens on September 5, the screening of the documentary film El Aura del camino by director Jacobo Sucari or the presentation of the book Portbou, a journey to where? by Cari Oriol Serres.
