Rhetorical Homologies in Walter Benjamin,The Ring, and Capital

Barry Brummett The University of Texas at Austin

Abstract

This article further develops a method of rhetorical homologies developed in some earlier work. A grand binary of the unique as opposed to copies is shown to underlie Walter Benjamin's classic essay “The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction”—people's experiences of capital as it relates to humanity—and popular experience of capital—and some recent texts in popular culture, principally the film The Ring. The homology occurring across those texts and experiences is manifested with different polarities of value so as to adapt to differing rhetorical needs.

Journal
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published
2006-12-01
DOI
10.1080/02773940600868036
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
Closed
Topics
Export

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

References (41)

  1. The City Cultures Reader
  2. Normat
  3. Benjamin , Walter .Illuminations. Trans. Ed. Harry Zohn and Hannah Arendt . New York : Schocken Books , 1968 …
  4. 10.1080/15295038809366703
  5. Rhetorical Homologies: Form, Culture, Experience
Show all 41 →
  1. Attitudes Toward History.
  2. Counter-Statement
  3. A Grammar of Motives
  4. Permanence and Change
  5. The Philosophy of Literary Form.
  6. A Rhetoric of Motives
  7. The Hero With a Thousand Faces
  8. Form and Genre: Shaping Rhetorical Action
  9. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
  10. On Narrative
  11. From Art to Politics: How Artistic Creations Shape Political Conceptions
  12. All Consuming Images: The Politics of Style in Contemprary Culture
  13. Channels of Desire: Mass Images and the Shaping of American Consciousness.
  14. Walter Benjamin: Theoretical Questions
  15. Life, the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality
  16. 10.1159/000278548
  17. Telos
  18. Telos
  19. Media, Culture, and Society
  20. 10.1080/15295038509360070
    Critical Studies in Mass Communication  
  21. Homology Theory: An Introduction to Algebraic Topology
  22. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act
  23. Introduction to Structuralism
  24. The Raw and the Cooked
  25. Symbolic Anthropology
  26. 10.1126/science.185.4147.229
  27. The Logic of Culture
  28. Walter Benjamin and the Antinomies of Tradition
  29. Ideology and the Image
  30. 10.1080/10417940209373233
    Southern Communication Journal  
  31. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
  32. The Disenchantment of Art: The Philosophy of Walter Benjamin
  33. 10.1086/392639
  34. 10.1097/00011363-199111040-00006
  35. Marxism and Literature
  36. Profane Culture