JMB Book Club on Walter Benjamin’s One-Way Street
As Part of the Exhibition Between the Lines (in German)
Walter Benjamin: Einbahnstraße (One-Way Street), dust jacket, front cover. Ernst Rowohlt Verlag, Berlin, 1928; German Historical Museum, accession R 92/5476.
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.
Tue 16 Jun 2026, 6:30 pm
Where
W. M. Blumenthal Academy,
Klaus Mangold Auditorium
Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin
(Opposite the Museum)
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.
Exhibition Between the Lines. Daniel Libeskind and the Jewish Museum Berlin: Features & Programs
Exhibition Webpage
Between the Lines. Daniel Libeskind and the Jewish Museum Berlin: 8 May to 1 Nov 2026
Accompanying Events & Tours
An evening with Daniel Libeskind, our JMB book club and public tours: Find all dates in our calendar
See also
- The Libeskind building: Architecture retells German-Jewish history
- Daniel Libeskind, architect
- How our museum came to be: Online feature in four parts, 2020
- Diagonal Line of Diversity: The Lindenstrasse in Berlin, caught between past and future, essay 2016
