A memória e o outro da História: topografias da memória entre Franz Kafka e Walter Benjamin

The Western civilization is going through a long programmatic latency phase. The value of memory, though neglected in the current throw-away society, remains crucial to the development of a critical thinking capable of facing the multiple challenges posed by the present: above all the economic/financial/ecological crisis – which lies at the heart of material wealth – and which casts a grim shadow over our irresponsible choices – i.e. those choices that are the faithful emanation of the blaspheme trinity “globalization-westernization-development”, the suicidal structure of the new planetary Iron-age. Such a (tortuous) trip down memory lane imposes a meditation on what could be defined an “architectonics of memory”. St. Augustine, Piranesi, Kafka, Magritte, and Auster are only a few of the guides leading us in this adventure, while Benjamin is the philosophical and political beacon of light in this imperative “archaeology of knowledge”.