David Kishik is Assistant Professor at Emerson College and the author of To Imagine a Form of Life, a series of paraphilosophical books.
"[P]erhaps the most idiosyncratically ambitious book about Benjamin
ever written...Kishik's Benjamin becomes a kind of Metatron, the
biblical archangel whose task it is to record all the deeds of
Israel."—Benjamin Wurgaft, Los Angeles Review of Books
"[T]he portrait The Manhattan Project conjures of New York manages
to be that rare combination of skeptical but not cynical; a
combination often difficult to sustain in modern urban life... [A]
feeling of living on borrowed time—a sense that eventually the
daily experience of being overwhelmed by crowds and noise will
catch up with you, to say nothing of the deeper displacement of
migration—runs through Kishik's book, [and] this is its pay-off.
"—Stephanie Boland, Los Angeles Review of Books
"An extraordinary new book which I know Edward Soja would have read
with the greatest interest. It's David Kishik's The Manhattan
Project. But it's not about that Manhattan Project at all. Instead,
it riffs on Benjamin's Arcades Project in the most astonishing of
ways."—Derek Gregory, Geographical Imaginations
". . . a thoroughly diverting read"—David B. Hobbes, The National
Post
"Kishik has written an imaginative, thoughtful, and engaging
account of the intellectual afterlife, in the US, of German
philosopher Walter Benjamin . . . This book will have significant
appeal to those interested in critical geography, urban history,
and 20th-century philosophy and cultural history more generally . .
. Highly recommended."—M. Uebel, CHOICE
"Finally. A book about Walter Benjamin that Walter Benjamin might
consider reading" and "David Kishik's The Manhattan Project dares
to playfully and productively demystify one of modernity's greatest
demystifiers: Walter Benjamin. In liberating this most challenging
and unorthodox thinker from the musty aura and provincial politics
of the academy, Kishik's "Theory of a City" is, in fact, nothing
less than a radically new form of creative and critical praxis. The
result is a beautifully written and deeply self-aware book that
enacts and expands upon Benjamin's own critical spirit—at a time
when it is needed most."—Eric Jarosinski, NeinQuarterly
"A curiously effervescent text that is simultaneously a work of
imagined philology, an index of urban delirium, and a fascinating
evocation of a city that became the de facto capital of the 20th
century . . . It is therefore much to Kishik's credit that his slim
volume, a drop in the vast ocean of literature on the city, packs
such a considerable theoretical punch."—Dustin Illingworth, The
Brooklyn Rail
"A beguiling work of literary and social criticism that begins with
a subverting counterfactual and moves into a deeply searching
inquiry into the nature of an iconic island . . . [F]ans of Arendt,
Howe, and Kazin will find Kishik's invention, and his playful
seriousness in maintaining it, both a pleasure and a
provocation."—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
"[A] brilliantly realized thought experiment that's as full of wit
and imagination as it is of serious thoughts about
Benjamin."—Laurie Greer, Politics and Prose
"Written with rare lightness and wit, this book is without equal,
incomparable in the present landscape of literature written on New
York."—Yehuda Emmanuel Safran, Columbia University
"The Manhattan Project is a work of enchantment that disenchants
the city. Kaleidoscopic in its effect, dazzling in its artistry and
intensity, it is an astonishing accomplishment, a veritable
intellectual and imaginative tour-de-force. Kishik playfully and
perceptively allows Benjamin's idiosyncrasies and genius to shine
through his book, just as he enables New York's pulses and rhythms
to energize it."—Graeme Gilloch, Lancaster University
"The Manhattan Project channels Walter Benjamin in a quest to
understand twentieth-century New York. Deftly blending history and
fiction in order to capture the city's delirious yet weighty
reality, David Kishik offers astute observations of phenomena as
diverse as photography, the character of the street, Andy Warhol,
dance, and the New York Public Library. Turning the pages of this
fascinating book is like turning a New York street corner only to
find some new and unexpected pleasure."—Todd May, Clemson
University
"[A] playful and thought-provoking work that experiments with
place-based, fictional philosophy in the urban context."— Zoé
Hamstead, "90 Recommendations for the One Book About Cities That
Everyone Should Read,"The Nature of Cities
"Kishik's book is certainly no dry exegesis, but a creative and
original interpretation of Benjamin's text...[Kishik] reveal[s]
Benjamin's work in a very new light, moving it from the warm glow
of the gas lanterns of 19th century Paris into the colder, bluer
light of 20th century Manhattan. Amidst the large volume of recent
writing on Benjamin, this makes an original and distinctive
contribution"—Julian Brigstocke, Society + Space
"Kishik positions himself as 'the ghostwriter of a ghostwriter of a
ghostwriter', unpacking a 'book that was never written' by a
Lazarus for a city too busy to write its own story. That's a whole
mess of postmodern graveyard whimsy and Kishik's rendition of
Benjamin's Manhattan remains consistently tantalizing."—Robert
Anasi, Times Literary Supplement
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