Benjamin Stares Back

by Henry Bond

Walter Benjamin's groundbreaking 1931 essay "A Short History of Photography" explores the social and psychological dynamics of the mass-media age and is recognised as one of the indispensable works of cultural theory. Working from the classic 1972 translation by Stanley Mitchell--included in full here--Bond annotates the text with a series of concise passage-by-passage commentaries that flesh out the often terse and rather abrupt arguments that Benjamin puts forward. Written in plain language this book is a useful study aid as well as an excellent general introduction to Benjamin’s approach.

90 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 15, 2015

About the author

Henry Bond is a writer and photographer; he is senior lecturer in photography at Kingston University; his exploration of Lacanian theory "Lacan at the Scene" was published, with a foreword by Slavoj Žižek, by the MIT Press in 2009.