Feminine

We can note that as much as the insignificant detail comes in for high praise, as much as the marginal is pursued, theorized, and presented as a goal for experience, Benjamin consistently reverts to the relatively standard pantheon of white men for his most profound insights and praise. This tendency infuses the Arcades Project, though we can note two main counter-tendencies:  (1) many times the sources of his citations, citations that he claims are the most important part of the work, are virtually unknown and unrecognizable and can be considered truly marginal, cultural detritus in some cases (though the authors are essentially never women); moreover, aspects of citation itself and Benjamin's particular problematizing of what we could say is the discourse of empire, as well as aspects of his embrace of the marginal, are things that we can usefully bring forward into a critique of the contemporary moment. (Even so I don't think it's clear whether this opposition is, for instance, phallogocentric, or is in fact a more substantial critique.) (2) There is certainly a strong element of gender fluidity in the flaneur or dandy, and in some key passages such as H1,1 central figures that one would assume either Benjamin identifies with or who are clearly incarnations of the flaneur are women. There is a structural gender indeterminateness in Benjamin's work, and if we extend Benjamin's thinking to a critique of technology at its foundations, then we can set up a relationship between gender and technology in this way.