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The Blinkered Flâneur: Walking with Franz Hessel in 1920s Berlin

Does the flâneur, that curiously modern figure who wanders metropolitan streets, have a political consciousness? For Franz Hessel — author of Spazieren in Berlin, “a memorization while strolling” that Walter Benjamin called “thoroughly epic” — the answer seemed to be no. Paul Sullivan explores Hessel’s perambulations through Berlin and the achievements and limitations of his vision.