Life and achievements
Early life
Walter Benjamin was born in 1892 in Berlin into a Jewish family of fine bourgeoisie origin. Benjamin’s father was a wealthy businessman, and because of this, he could receive private education. As a child, Benjamin had ambitions in philosophy and literature, which he developed after meeting with his time’s cultural and intellectual personalities.
He attended the progressive Haubinda boarding school in Thuringia, where he met the educational reformer Gustav Wyneken. In the company of Wyneken, Benjamin developed his early ideas on youth culture, education, and freedom of intellect. On his return to Berlin, he resumed writing for Der Anfang, a journal for the liberal youth of Germany.
Having finished secondary school, Benjamin went to the University of Freiburg, where he became a follower of the neo-Kantian philosopher Heinrich Rickert. He then transferred to the University of Berlin, where he studied under the sociologist Georg Simmel. Benjamin was always very close to Gerhard Scholem, who later became Gershom Scholem, a scholar of Jewish mysticism who would influence Benjamin’s work later in his life. The two together focused on the relationship between philosophy, religion, and literature.
However, Benjamin was disillusioned with the Youth Movement after the First World War, which he considered a betrayal of pacifism. Benjamin was awarded his doctorate in 1919 with a thesis on Romantic art criticism and the involvement of the German Romantics in the development of literary theory. Despite this academic achievement, his career suffered a major setback in 1925 when the University of Frankfurt turned down his Habilitationsschrift, The Origin of German Tragic Drama.
This rejection was a turning point in his life, as he was forced to drop the dream of an academic career and embrace freelance intellectualism.
Legacy
Walter Benjamin is one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, whose work covers philosophy, cultural theory, media, and literature. He is known and cited across the disciplines, from the critical theory of the Frankfurt School to current discussions of technology, politics, and art.
His concept of the ‘aura’ and its loss in the age of mechanical reproduction remains one of the most vital ideas in media and cultural analysis today while shaping the theories of Marshall McLuhan and Jean Baudrillard. Benjamin’s essays on history, mainly “On the Concept of History,” have influenced postmodern conceptions of time, memory, and politics of history. His messianic vision of history, as opposed to the progressive view of history as a process, is revolutionary.
Besides his theoretical writings, Benjamin’s work influenced how art and politics interrelate. How he looks at how new media, such as film and photography, alter our perception of reality still holds in today’s world, where images can be reproduced even more. How he sought to understand the modern city, especially in his posthumously published work, The Arcades Project, has relevance in urban studies, sociology, and architecture.
The fragmented nature of the project is an embodiment of modernity. It captures the challenges inherent in doing history and cultural criticism in a world characterized by technological and social change.
Benjamin’s premature death in 1940, just on the threshold of emigration to the United States and freedom from the Nazi terror, invested his work, especially his meditations on history and disaster, with a tragic pathos. His ideas have since been adopted by scholars and activists, especially those who have an affinity with Marxist philosophy, Aesthetics, and Philosophy of history.
Today, Benjamin’s works serve as a reference point for scholars dealing with modernity, memory, and the possibility of radical societal transformation.
Milestone moments
Jul 15, 1892
Birth of a Brilliant Mind
Walter Benjamin was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Berlin in 1892.
His father, Emil Benjamin, was a businessman who made a lot of money, so the family could afford to live a wealthy life.
Benjamin’s childhood was characterized by a desire for knowledge and acquaintance with cultural events, which determined his future occupation as a philosopher.
Benjamin attended private schools in his childhood, where his teachers saw that he was gifted academically.
His family’s money allowed him to attend libraries and mingle with the intelligentsia in Berlin, where he first encountered German Romanticism, which would become important to him later.
Benjamin was born into wealth and privilege, but he developed intellectual concerns with society, art, and politics that would inform his career.
His early life in Berlin’s active environment laid the foundation for his future work in cultural theory and philosophy.
Jul 17, 1919
Doctorate in Philosophy
Benjamin was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Bern on The Concept of Art Criticism in German Romanticism.
This became his lifelong passion for the relationship between art, philosophy, and literature.
His dissertation was on Romantic art criticism, and the writers included Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis.
In this work, he began his subsequent investigations into the interaction between art and society and his concern with how art functions as a mediator of culture and philosophy.
While the dissertation was positively received, Benjamin’s unorthodox thinking and refusal to follow the rules of the academic community prevented him from getting a job in academia.
However, this period started his writing and thinking career, and he produced many works.
Feb 14, 1925
The Refusal of the Habilitation Thesis
Benjamin began writing The Origin of German Tragic Drama in 1924 and submitted the manuscript to the University of Frankfurt in 1925 to secure his habilitation.
However, the thesis was not approved, so Benjamin could not continue his academic path.
The rejection of his work was a major setback for Benjamin, as it forced him to drop his academic career.
However, it also signified his foray into the world of literature outside the university, resulting in his interaction with other scholars such as Brecht and Adorno.
Nevertheless, Benjamin’s work on baroque tragic drama became one of his most significant contributions to the theory of literature.
The rejection made him shift his attention to writing essays and criticism, for which he is best remembered today.
Mar 20, 1936
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Benjamin wrote one of his most famous essays, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, discussing how technological processes such as photography and film changed art and culture.
Benjamin asserted in this essay that, through modern reproduction technologies, art was losing its “aura,” or its connection to its originality.
While this lessened the traditional role of art in society, he also perceived these technologies as able to bring art to the masses.
This essay is still one of the most frequently cited works in cultural theory and media studies.
It has shaped discussions about technology, culture, and politics, and Benjamin’s concepts of art and politics have influenced media debates.