Porosity and the Transnational: Travelling Theory between Naples and Frankfurt (Walter Benjamin, Asja Lacis and Ernst Bloch)

Abstract Since its foregrounding in Walter Benjamin and Asja Lacis’s essay on Naples in 1925, the concept of porosity has become a topos in discussions of that city, of Italy and of urban planning in general, to the point of receiving criticism in some quarters for its imprecision and over-use. The aim of this article is to explore the background to the term and its possible relevance to more recent transnational models of culture. This involves tracing the emergence of porosity in the work of Germanophone intellectuals travelling in Italy in the 1920s and its relation to the paradigm of travelling theory developed by Edward Said, itself one of the precursors of current models of transnationalism. Ultimately, the history of porosity reveals weaknesses and strengths that anticipate some of the problems and opportunities encountered by present attempts to understand cultural identity and interaction in transnational terms.