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

Walter Benjamin and the Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media

In this course, Professor Henk de Berg (University of Sheffield) discusses the advantages and disadvantages of social media. In the first module, we look at Walter Benjamin's essay 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'. We then look at critiques of Walter Benjamin's argument. After this, we look at the advantages of social media. Finally, we look at some disadvantages of social media.

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

In the first module, we look at Walter Benjamin's essay 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'. In particular, the focus on: (i) Walter Benjamin's life and the essay's historical background; (ii) the argument in 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction', including the way the mass reproduction of film and photography changes the nature of art; (iii) the idea of the aura and its importance to Benjamin's argument, including a definition of the aura; and (iv) the aura's disappearance and its social consequences.