From aesthetics to redemptive politics: A political reading of the theological aesthetics of Hans Urs von Balthasar and the materialist aesthetics of Walter Benjamin

This dissertation argues that because aesthetics is always a political discourse, any theology or philosophy based on the discourse of the aesthetic must account for its implicit politics. This study juxtaposes the theological aesthetics of Hans Urs von Balthasar and the materialist aesthetics of Walter Benjamin, focusing on the politics implicit to their respective employments of the discourse of the aesthetic. Benjamin's aesthetic methods offer resources for a critical reading of von Balthasar's theological project.; The dissertation is divided into four parts. In Part I the author constructs a genealogy of the discourse of the aesthetic to locate the historical and social fields in which Benjamin and von Balthasar produced their aesthetic theories. Von Balthasar's theological aesthetics are situated within the social and theoretical space of what Benjamin calls "the loss of the cult-value of the work of art." To restore this loss von Balthasar removes theology from the social space of human history and politics; theology as a result is aestheticized.; Part II is composed of two chapters. In Chapter 2 the author maintains that von Balthasar's apolitical account of the nature of the human being serves to underwrite an implicit understanding of the nature of Christian praxis. In Chapter 3 this criticism is directed at von Balthasar's interpretation of Jesus' descent into hell.; Part III is divided into two chapters. In Chapter 4 the author rejects the distinction between an "early" Jewish Benjamin and a "later" Marxist one, arguing that these two referrals can fruitfully be located in a common theoretical space. In Chapter 5 Benjamin's method of materialist historiography is interpreted as a form of "negative theology."; In Part IV the respective projects of Benjamin and von Balthasar are again brought into a theoretical space to address how Benjamin's method of materialist historiography might be employed to politicize von Balthasar's theological/aesthetic method.; The conclusion argues that von Balthasar's project can only be completed as nostalgia. It also asserts that the social and political crises von Balthasar and Benjamin faced ultimately could not be resolved by means of aesthetic discourse.