[Discussion] UPDATE: Walter Benjamin (UK) (11/11/05; 4/6/06-4/8/06)

[gpultar@cstgroup.org]

From: "P. Allmer & J. Sears" <sears@allmer.fsnet.co.uk>

CALL FOR PAPERS - UPDATE

CFP: Academic Session: "A Tremendous Shattering of Tradition": Reconsidering
Walter Benjamin's 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'

(AAH Annual Conference, University of Leeds, UK, 4/6/2006 - 4/8/2006)


Session convenors:
Patricia Allmer, MIRIAD, Manchester Metropolitan University, Cavendish North
Building, Cavendish Street, Manchester, M15 6BG, sears@allmer.fsnet.co.uk

John Sears, Manchester Metropolitan University (Cheshire), Interdisciplinary
Studies, Crewe Green Road, Crewe, Cheshire, CW1 5DU, J.Sears@mmu.ac.uk


Session Abstract:
This session will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the publication of Walter
Benjamin's seminal essay 'Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen
Reproduzierbarkeit', translated into English by Harry Zohn in 1968 (year of
revolutionary discontent) as 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction'.


In 1936 the essay offered a challenge not only to Fascist appropriations of art,
but also to conventional Marxist aesthetics as well as to phenomenological
theorisations of art - witness its problematic reception by Adorno and others,
its expressed discontent with what it sees as depoliticised modes of aesthetic
engagement, and its analysis of "a world without aura" (Rodolphe Gasche). These
challenges are repeated in different ways in the essay's influence on the
turbulent intellectual scene of the late 1960s. It has contributed significantly
to the development of both Marxist and postmodernist theorisations of culture,
as well as to the ongoing art-historical reassessment of the art work and its
roles in contemporary media-dominated societies. In short, Benjamin's essay
constitutes a major, if continually contested, contribution to debates about
modernism and postmodernism that retain their currency in the age of digital
reproduction, "a period when politics as spectacle has become a commonplace in
our televisual world", as Susan Buck-Morss argues.

The essay's perennial appeal to discontented Marxist and other modes of reading
modern and postmodern art may constitute one line of enquiry. Papers are also
sought that will explore the essay's continuing significance for contemporary
theories, practices and histories of art. The essay has exerted a profound
influence on the work of key theorists (eg October) and practitioners (Warhol,
Burgin, Sherman); papers may wish to explore or assess aspects or examples of
this influence. Other topics might include Benjamin's notions of the aura of the
art work, of originality, of reproduction; changes in the significance for art
history of mechanical and other forms of reproduction; the implications and
consequences of accommodating photography and film (Benjamin's exemplary modern
media) within the configurations of art historical practice, and the essay's
contribution to current debates about inter- and trans-disciplinarity (the
'contents' of the discipline of art history); the essay-form itself as
exemplifying politicised, interventionist aesthetic practices of modernist and
postmodernist malcontents; the essay itself considered as a work of art,
enacting its own arguments in fragmentary, inconsistent forms; and
considerations of the various publication contexts and initial critical
receptions of and responses to Benjamin's essay.

Papers are invited that address these and other topics in relation to
reconsiderations of Benjamin's essay.

Details for Submission of Proposals:

Papers must not exceed 30 minutes. Please email a 200 word abstract to the
session convenors before the 11th November 2005. Include the title of your
paper, your full name and contact details and institutional affiliation (if
applicable).

Please note that the call for papers for all the conference sessions has been
published in the June edition of the AAH Bulletin and at the AAH website:
www.aah.org.uk



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