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Le cousin Pons and the Invention of Ideology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Lynn R. Wilkinson
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Abstract

The questions raised by an early daguerreotype of a Parisian boulevard serve as the point of departure for a discussion of Balzac's Le cousin Pons and the famous definition of ideology in Marx and Engels's German Ideology. Taking issue with Walter Benjamin's essays on mechanical reproduction, I argue here that both works represent responses to the new technology that emphasize its critical potential.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 107 , Issue 2 , March 1992 , pp. 274 - 289
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1992

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