Laughter by the Way: Toward a Politicization of Art in Walter Benjamin

Abstract

Laughter is one of the lesser studied subjects in the work of Walter Benjamin. However, it constitutes one of the keys to understanding what the German critic considered might be a politicization of art. In this article we attempt to describe the place of laughter in Benjamin’s aesthetic and political theory as it is presented in his lecture «The Author as a Producer». From that point we propose to introduce his reading of Bertolt Brecht, as well as his controversy with Theodor W. Adorno