Telling demonic fairytales: an essay and sound piece on Walter Benjamin's radio works for children

Between 1927 and 1933, Walter Benjamin produced eighty-four radio pieces; more than a third of them for children. Because there are no known recordings, scholars have only a partial understanding of these works. Both radio and childhood are under-examined in Benjaminian scholarship. ‘Telling Demonic Fairytales’ approaches Benjamin from an interdisciplinary perspective. This project—an essay and a sound piece—starts by asking: What did Benjamin hope to achieve by addressing children over the radio? The essay focuses on three points. It describes Benjamin’s hopes contrasted with actual German state radio; it examines his conception of children and storytelling, and offers a reading of the radio script ‘Demonic Berlin’ and a related E.T.A. Hoffmann story. Using montage, the sound piece weaves a biographical story of Benjamin with fragments about modern rituals, play, and politics. The sound piece examines large social issues through the common poetry of individual voices telling specific stories.