Illuminations

Illuminations PDF

Author: Walter Benjamin

Publisher: HMH

Published: 1968-10-23

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 0547540655

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Essays and reflections from one of the twentieth century’s most original cultural critics, with an introduction by Hannah Arendt. Walter Benjamin was an icon of criticism, renowned for his insight on art, literature, and philosophy. This volume includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity; his studies on Baudelaire and Proust; and his essays on Leskov and Brecht’s epic theater. Illuminations also includes his penetrating study “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode; and his theses on the philosophy of history. Hannah Arendt selected the essays for this volume and introduces them with a classic essay about Benjamin’s life in a dark historical era. Leon Wieseltier’s preface explores Benjamin’s continued relevance for our times. Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) was a German-Jewish Marxist literary critic, essayist, translator, and philosopher. He was at times associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory and was also greatly inspired by the Marxism of Bertolt Brecht and Jewish mysticism as presented by Gershom Scholem.​

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction PDF

Author: Walter Benjamin

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2008-08-07

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13: 0141963425

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One of the most important works of cultural theory ever written, Walter Benjamin's groundbreaking essay explores how the age of mass media means audiences can listen to or see a work of art repeatedly – and what the troubling social and political implications of this are. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves – and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives – and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: An Influential Essay of Cultural Criticism; The History and Theory of Art (Hardcover)

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: An Influential Essay of Cultural Criticism; The History and Theory of Art (Hardcover) PDF

Author: Walter Benjamin

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2018-08-24

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13: 9780359046386

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Walter Benjamin discusses whether art is diminished by the modern culture of mass replication, arriving at the conclusion that the aura or soul of an artwork is indeed removed by duplication. In an essay critical of modern fashion and manufacture, Benjamin decries how new technology affects art. The notion of fine arts is threatened by an absence of scarcity; an affair which diminishes the authenticity and essence of the artist's work. Though the process of art replication dates to classical antiquity, only the modern era allows for a mass quantity of prints or mass production. Given that the unique aura of an artist's work, and the reaction it provokes in those who see it, is diminished, Benjamin posits that artwork is much more political in significance. The style of modern propaganda, of the use of art for the purpose of generating raw emotion or arousing belief, is likely to become more prevalent versus the old-fashioned production of simpler beauty or meaning in a cultural or religious context.

An Analysis of Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

An Analysis of Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction PDF

Author: Rachele Dini

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2018-02-21

Total Pages: 88

ISBN-13: 0429939957

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The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction combats traditional art criticism’s treatment of artworks as fixed, unchanging mystical objects. For Walter Benjamin, the consequences of addressing a work of art in this manner have a wider resonance: closed off from any active visual or tactile engagement, the work of art becomes an object of passive contemplation and a potential tool of oppression. Benjamin argues that technology has fundamentally altered the way art is experienced. Potentially open to interpretation and accessible to many, art in the age of mechanical reproduction has the potential to be mobilized for radical purposes. While ostensibly addressing the artistic consequences of technical reproducibility on art, Benjamin also addresses the wider political consequences of this shift.

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction PDF

Author: Walter Benjamin

Publisher:

Published: 2023-03-02

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781774640074

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Walter Benjamin discusses whether art is diminished by the modern culture of mass replication, arriving at the conclusion that the aura or soul of an artwork is indeed removed by duplication. In an essay critical of modern fashion and manufacture, Benjamin decries how new technology affects art. The notion of fine arts is threatened by an absence of scarcity; an affair which diminishes the authenticity and essence of the artist's work. Though the process of art replication dates to classical antiquity, only the modern era allows for a mass quantity of prints or mass production. Given that the unique aura of an artist's work, and the reaction it provokes in those who see it, is diminished, Benjamin posits that artwork is much more political in significance. The style of modern propaganda, of the use of art for the purpose of generating raw emotion or arousing belief, is likely to become more prevalent versus the old-fashioned production of simpler beauty or meaning in a cultural or religious context.

Walter Benjamin and Art

Walter Benjamin and Art PDF

Author: Andrew Benjamin

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2005-02-01

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 1847144543

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Walter Benjamin's most famous and influential essay remains The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Walter Benjamin and the Work of Art is the first book to provide a broad and dedicated analysis of this canonical work and its effect upon core contemporary concerns in the visual arts, aesthetics and the history of philosophy. The book is structured around three distinct areas: the extension of Benjamin's work; the question of historical connection; the importance of the essay in the development of criticism of both the visual arts and literature. Contributors to the volume include major Benjamin commentators, whose work has very much defined the reception of the essay, and leading philosophers, historians and aesthetician, whose approaches open up new areas of interest and relevance.

Architecture and Utopia

Architecture and Utopia PDF

Author: Manfredo Tafuri

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 1979-10-02

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9780262700207

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Architecture and Utopia leads the reader beyond architectural form into a broader understanding of the relation of architecture to society and the architect to the workforce and the marketplace. Written from a neo-Marxist point of view by a prominent Italian architectural historian, Architecture and Utopia leads the reader beyond architectural form into a broader understanding of the relation of architecture to society and the architect to the workforce and the marketplace. It discusses the Garden Cities movement and the suburban developments it generated, the German-Russian architectural experiments of the 1920s, the place of the avant-garde in the plastic arts, and the uses and pitfalls of seismological approaches to architecture, and assesses the prospects of socialist alternatives.

Media and Cultural Studies

Media and Cultural Studies PDF

Author: Meenakshi Gigi Durham

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2009-02-09

Total Pages: 800

ISBN-13: 1405150300

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Bringing together a range of core texts into one volume, thisacclaimed anthology offers the definitive resource in culture,media, and communication. A fully revised new edition of the bestselling anthology inthis dynamic and multidisciplinary field New contributions include essays from Althusser through toHenry Jenkins, and a completely new section on Globalization andSocial Movements Retains important emphasis on the giant thinkers and“makers” of the field: Gramsci on hegemony; Althusseron ideology; Horkheimer and Adorno on the culture industry; RaymondWilliams on Marxist cultural theory; Habermas on the public sphere;McLuhan on media; Chomsky on propaganda; hooks and Mulvey on thesubjects of visual pleasure and oppositional gazes Features a substantial critical introduction, short sectionintroductions and full bibliographic citations