Walter Benjamin born in 1892 was a German Jewish philosopher and cultural critic. Renowned for his essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," he explored the impact of mass media on art and culture. Benjamin, associated with the Frankfurt School, engaged deeply with Marxist theory and surrealism. His works often blended philosophy, literary criticism, and historical analysis, reflecting a unique interdisciplinary approach.

Fleeing the Nazis, Benjamin died by suicide 1940 at the Spanish-French border, leaving an influential legacy in critical theory and cultural studies. In this presentation, we delve into the ethical and political dimensions of Walter Benjamin's curated selection of private letters from the nineteenth-century archives. Initially published in a daily newspaper in 1930 and later compiled into the book "German Men and Women" during his exile in France in 1936, Benjamin's strategic dissemination of these letters, accompanied by commentaries, serves as a focal point for analysis.

In this episode of BIC Talks, Professor of German Language and Literature, Columbia University, Dorothea von Mücke, unravels the nuances of Benjamin's publication strategies, illustrating how they offer alternatives to the construction of a national character. The following discussion between Prof. von Mücke and author and translator Prashant Keshavmuthy particularly emphasises Benjamin's intervention in the political philosophy of history, exploring how his approach informs our quest to perceive, model, and document humaneness in behaviour and character.

This is an extract from an in-person session that took place in December 2023 at the BIC premises.

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