Exploring Walter Benjamin’s Reflections on Art and Technology: A Retro Reading Course in the Digital Age

In the upcoming semester, honors students will have the opportunity to explore the concerns of theorist Walter Benjamin about art’s role in the face of technological progress. The Retro Reading course led by Curtis Maughan, director of the World Languages and Digital Humanities Studio, will delve into this topic through close-readings and explorations of contemporary technologies such as AI platforms and open world video games.

Students will be guided through an extensive analysis of one of the most influential essays of the 20th century, “The Work of Art in the Age of Technological Reproducibility” (1936) by German Jewish theorist-philosopher-public intellectual Walter Benjamin. As movies became the primary mode of mainstream entertainment in the 1930s, many questioned whether film could be considered art. However, Benjamin posed a different question: How has film changed the very nature of art?

The essay has been referenced whenever society has had to reconsider the boundaries of art in light of technological advancements, making it especially relevant to our current moment at the dawn of AI. Maughan said that anyone who is excited by, worried about or interested in how generative AI will radically change our media landscape should consider taking this course. Students will develop and deepen their understanding of the present moment by looking back to an analogous moment in