Imaginary and capitalistic culture in Walter Benjamin’s passage project

an analysis about the phantasmagoria concept

Abstract

This article discusses the relationship between the imaginary and capitalistic culture within the sphere of Walter Benjamin’s Passages project, focusing on the analysis of his phantasmagoria concept. At first, we reflect about the Marx conception of commodity fetishism and ideology, which aspects had influenced this Benjamin’s oeuvre. Thereafter, we critically analyze the Benjamin concept of phantasmagoria, which assumed a key position in the last stage of Passages’ work. Therefore, we use some researchers of Benjamin’s philosophy who approach the subject in question. The research offers a comprehension about the Benjamin’s phantasmagory category in a more specific sense, as an aesthetic phenomenon related to the particularities of the ascending cultural industry in the 19th century.