Theories of the Image: The Image in Walter Benjamin

Returning to Walter Benjamin's Art Work essay and its various sources and revisions, this course will discuss recent engagements with Benjamin's work in cinema, photography, and visual and media studies and will attempt to understand the role and functions of the faculty he coins 'the mimetic' in modern culture. Readings will be drawn from the English translation of Benjamin's Selected Writings, volumes 1-4, and including his work on photography, history, surrealism and his reviews of writers such as Charles Baudelaire. Readings will also include some of Benjamin's own primary sources, such as the writings of Kracauer as well contemporary discussions of Benjamin's work in academic journals.