CALL FOR PAPERS

Deadline: 11th November 2005

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,
searsallmer.fsnet.co.uk

John Sears, Manchester Metropolitan University (Cheshire),
Interdisciplinary Studies, Crewe Green Road, Crewe, Cheshire, CW1 5DU,
J.Searsmmu.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 Gasché). 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