Walter Benjamin 1892 – 1940

Walter Benjamin was an early 20th-century German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, and essayist, whose work has become one of the most studied bodies of writing in the history of cultural criticism. He was loosely associated with the Frankfurt School and developed an idiosyncratic philosophy combining Marxism, Jewish mysticism, and a redemptive philosophy of history. Major essays include The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, the Theses on the Philosophy of History, and the unfinished Arcades Project, a vast study of nineteenth-century Paris assembled from quotations and fragments. He committed suicide in September 1940 at the French-Spanish border, fleeing Nazi-occupied France, fearing he would be turned over to the Gestapo. His work was largely unrecognised in his lifetime but became formative for cultural theory, media studies, and continental philosophy in the second half of the 20th century.