JMB Book Club on Walter Benjamin’s One-Way Street

As Part of the Exhibition "Between the Lines" (in German)

Read Along!

“The technique of One-Way Street is akin to that of a player. Not least in this lies the shocking nature of the book,” writes Theodor W. Adorno about the genre-transcending collection of thoughts by his friend Walter Benjamin. As one of the sources of inspiration for Daniel Libeskind’s design of the Jewish Museum Berlin (JMB), we are now taking a fresh look at Benjamin’s 1928 work.

With titles such as Gas Station (German original title Tankstelle), Breakfast Room (Frühstücksstube), Excavation Works (Tiefbauarbeiten), Hairdresser for Fastidious Ladies (Coiffeur für penible Damen), or Stamp Shop (Briefmarkenhandlung), Benjamin creates in his fragments, sketches, and aphorisms a philosophical landscape composed of vivid, broken pieces.

In conversation with media scholar Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky and Monika Sommerer, head of the JMB Library, together we will explore Walter Benjamin’s fragmentary world of images in this key text of literary modernism.

Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky

Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky is Professor Emerita of Media Publics and Media Actors, with a particular focus on gender, at the Institute of Media Studies, Ruhr University Bochum. Her research focuses include Critical Theory, Feminist and Queer Theory, Media Philosophy and Epistemology, Media Anthropology and Game Theory, as well as Jewish Philosophy.

Meeting point: W.m. Blumenthal Academy, Klaus Mangold Auditorium Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin

Price: €6.00

Reduced price: €3.00

Booking: registration will soon be possible via the ticket store

Next date:

• Date Tuesday, 16/June/2026 18:30
• Venue Jüdisches Museum Berlin
• Address Lindenstraße 14, 10969 Berlin-Kreuzberg