The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility
Place on List:
I. Literary Theory and
Criticism
4. Marxism
Walter
Benjamin. The
Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility.
Supporting References:
- “Walter Benjamin.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2001. 1163-6. Print.
- Osborne, Peter and Matthew Charles. "Walter Benjamin." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. Winter Edition. 2012. Web. 15 Aug 2013.
The article with
URL( http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/benjamin/
) offers an overview of Benjamin and less a discussion on the
above-cited text.
“Walter
Benjamin's importance as a philosopher and critical theorist can be
gauged by the diversity of his intellectual influence and the
continuing productivity of his thought. Primarily regarded as a
literary critic and essayist, the philosophical basis of Benjamin's
writings is increasingly acknowledged. They were a decisive influence
upon Theodor W. Adorno's conception of philosophy's actuality or
adequacy to the present (Adorno 1931). In the 1930s, Benjamin's
efforts to develop a politically oriented, materialist aesthetic
theory proved an important stimulus for both the Frankfurt School of
Critical Theory and the Marxist poet and dramatist Bertolt Brecht.
“The delayed appearance of
Benjamin's collected writings has determined and sustained the
Anglophone reception of his work. (A two-volume selection was
published in German in 1955, with a full edition not appearing until
1972–89; English anthologies first appeared in 1968 and 1978; the
four-volume Selected Writings, 1996–2003.) Originally
received in the context of literary theory and aesthetics, the
philosophical depth and cultural breadth of Benjamin's thought have
only recently begun to be fully appreciated. Despite the voluminous
size of the secondary literature that it has produced, his work
remains a continuing source of productivity. An understanding of the
intellectual context of his work has contributed to the recent
philosophical revival of Early German Romanticism. His essay on ‘The
Work of Art in the Age of Its Technical Reproducibility’ remains a
major theoretical text for film theory. One-Way Street and
the work arising from his unfinished research on nineteenth century
Paris (The Arcades Project), provide a theoretical stimulus
for cultural theory and philosophical concepts of the modern.
Benjamin's messianic understanding of history has been an enduring
source of theoretical fascination and frustration for a diverse range
of recent philosophical thinkers, including Jacques Derrida, Giorgio
Agamben and, in a critical context, Jürgen Habermas. The ‘Critique
of Violence’ and ‘On the Concept of History’ are important
sources for Derrida's discussion of messianicity, which has been
influential, along with Paul de Man's discussion of allegory, for the
poststructuralist reception of Benjamin's writings. Aspects of
Benjamin's thought have also been associated with the recent revival
of political theology, although it is doubtful this reception is true
to the tendencies of Benjamin's own political thought.”
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