The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media

Until recently, Walter Benjamins seminal essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, was available to English-speaking readers only in the version that appeared in the 1968 collection Illuminations. Harvards new volume of the German cultural critics writings on media offers as its title-piece an earlier, edgier incarnationthe second of three composed between 1935 and 1939in a superior translation Throughout The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, Benjamins startling, often oblique language reveals his subjects from unexpected angles This volume amply demonstrates the keenness and ingenuity of Benjamins intuitions at the dawn of modern media culture. -- Ross Benjamin * Times Literary Supplement * Freshly translated (it used to be called The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, which, although more lumberingly Teutonic, has the virtue of evoking an image of robot sex) and newly packaged with an assortment of his other writings on media in a hipster-friendly paperback, Benjamins best-known work iswell, as they say on Facebook, its complicated. Man, is it ever complicated. The essay begins by describing the ways film and photography have changed human perception. Benjamin argues that because such exact simulacra of reality can be mass-distributed and mass-consumed, we have a new, more distant relationship to authentic realityand he concludes that these changes in perception clear a path for fascism. Not exactly cheerleadery, then. And while its easy to be distracted by Benjamins dusty examplesChaplins films and Picassos paintingsand therefore lulled into thinking hes describing a different worldwell, dont be. Substitute blogs and social-networking platforms and Twitter and YouTube and Wikipedia for film and photography, and the nearly century-old essay becomes a relevant, piercing alarm. -- Emily Gould * Technology Review * The editors and publisher of this volume deserve credit for organizing its contents thematically rather than chronologically. Such a format encourages readers to approach Benjamins work discursively, thereby fostering a superior sense of the recurrent ideas, themes, motifs and concepts that Benjamin employed time and again. -- Noah Isenberg * The Nation * A juicy selection of [Benjamins] many short pieces on pop culture. -- George Fetherling * Seven Oaks * The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media reflects Benjamins most salient thoughts on media and on culture in general in their most realized form, still maintaining an edge under the skin of everyone who reads it. The visual arts morph into literature and theory and then back to images, gestures and thought. Here the editors have situated this essay as the cornerstone of a vast collection of writings that demonstrates what was revolutionary about Benjamins explorations on media. He was so prescient, and mind you, Virginia, he was alive only until 1940. We are now talking about 2008 and his work is not just timely, but powerful, important, clairvoyant, and necessary. This is the second and most daring version of the Work of Art essay which tracks Benjamins observations on the production and reception of art; on film, radio, and photography; on the telephone, on childrens books, on Charlie Chaplin and so much more. He was not a critic for the 20th century, he was a theoretician for all time. This volume will probably become a text for some classes, but it is an introduction, a force that must be dealt with by anyone interested in culture, in the media, in the arts, to debates on the digital age. He could explore implications of these themes and be so prescient about what we are experiencing today. Oh, if he were alive today, he would tell us about the future, I am sure. This is a must for anyone who wants to be introduced to Benjamin, or one who

Walter Benjamin (18921940) was the author of many works of literary and cultural analysis. Michael W. Jennings is Class of 1900 Professor of Modern Languages at Princeton University. Brigid Doherty is Associate Professor of German and of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University. Thomas Y. Levin is Associate Professor of German at Princeton University.

* A Note on the Texts * Editors' Introduction I. The Production, Reproduction, and Reception of the Work of Art * The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Second Version * Theory of Distraction * To the Planetarium * Garlanded Entrance * The Rigorous Study of Art * Imperial Panorama * The Telephone * The Author as Producer * Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth Century * Eduard Fuchs, Collector and Historian * Review of Sternberger's Panorama II. Script, Image, Script-Image * Attested Auditor of Books * This Space for Rent * The Antinomies of Allegorical Exegesis * The Ruin * Dismemberment of Language * Graphology Old and New III. Painting and Graphics * Painting and the Graphic Arts * On Painting, or Sign and Mark * A Glimpse into the World of Children's Books * Dream Kitsch * Moonlit Nights on the Rue La Boetie * Chambermaids' Romances of the Past Century * Antoine Wiertz: Thoughts and Visions of a Severed Head * Some Remarks on Folk Art * Chinese Paintings at the Bibliotheque Nationale IV. Photography * News about Flowers * Little History of Photography * Letter from Paris (2): Painting and Photography * Review of Freund's Photographie en France au dix-neuvieme siecle V. Film * On the Present Situation of Russian Film * Reply to Oscar A. H. Schmitz * Chaplin * Chaplin in Retrospect * Mickey Mouse * The Formula in Which the Dialectical Structure of Film Finds Expression VI. The Publishing Industry and Radio * Journalism * A Critique of the Publishing Industry * The Newspaper * Karl Kraus * Reflections on Radio * Theater and Radio * Conversation with Ernst Schoen * Two Types of Popularity: Fundamental Reflections on a Radio Play * On the Minute * Index