Walter Benjamin
German-Jewish cultural critic and philosopher whose fragmentary, aphoristic essays on art, history, and modernity are among the most discussed texts in the humanities. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is the most cited essay in art history. He died fleeing the Nazis at the Spanish border.
Works
- IlluminationsEssays on culture, criticism, and the experience of modernity
- The Arcades ProjectUnfinished project excavating Paris as historical and cultural archive
- One-Way StreetShort poetic passages and observations on city life and modernity
- The Origin of German Tragic DramaBaroque study of mourning, melancholy, and tragic drama
- Theses on the Philosophy of HistoryEssays on history, progress, and revolution in modern political theory
- One Way StreetShort poetic passages and observations on city life and modernity
- Charles BaudelaireStudy of Baudelaire's modernity and the experience of Paris