Benjamin and Social Movements Today

Paper Summary:

The paper describes Walter Benjamin as an important German literary critic and philosopher who provided a means by which emerging social trends could be discerned through a careful and insightful analysis of various aspects of a capitalistic society. Benjamin maintained that his Konvolute framework provided a means to recognize and appreciate such social trends and this paper updates The Arcades Project into the 21st century and applies his Konvolutes to the contemporary social movements that are emerging in the United States. The paper concludes that America is faced with some unique challenges to its survival and all of the stakeholders - including illegal aliens who live there - are going to have to come to grips with the new realities of life in a multicultural America.

Outline:
Introduction
Review and Discussion
Conclusion

From the Paper:

""People-watching" has always been a popular pastime for many people, but Walter Benjamin used this technique and others to elucidate a number of influential but largely incomplete thoughts concerning the capitalist origins of modern Western society and how these forces affect the social movements that have emerged over the years. In an increasingly multicultural society, understanding how and why other people behave the way they do has assumed a new level of importance today. In fact, in recent years, people in the United States have been forced to face a number of harsh realities, with one of the most pressing and poignant of these issues being illegal immigration and its impact on the nation's security and employment."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Buck-Morss, S. (1991). The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
• Caygill, H. (1998). Benjamin: The colour of experience. London: Routledge.
• Jaros, M. (2003, July). Onto-poetic signatures of mathematical analogy in arts and literature. Consciousness, Literature and the Arts Archive, 4(2), 1-5.
• Leach, N. (2002). The hieroglyphics of space: Reading and experiencing the modern metropolis. London: Routledge.
• Mccole, J. (1993). Walter Benjamin and the antinomies of tradition. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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