1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 Aura and Charisma: Two Useful Concepts in Critical Theory C. Stephen Jaeger There is a lively discussion of “aura” in aesthetic theory, where all paths lead to Walter Benjamin. 1 There is also a lively discussion of “charisma” in soci- ology and political science, where all paths lead to Max Weber. 2 These two categories have never met, as far as I know, though they are closely related. The powerful gravitational pull of two major thinkers holds them in separate orbits. Lift them from those orbits long enough to focus on their relatedness, New German Critique 114, Vol. 38, No. 3, Fall 2011 DOI 10.1215/0094033X-1340021 © 2011 by New German Critique, Inc. 17 A previous version of this essay appeared as “Aura and Charisma,” Eadem utraque Europa 2 (2006): 125–54. Apologies to Joan W. Scott for adapting her title “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” American Historical Review 91, no. 5 (1986): 1053–75. 1. I know of no serious commentary on aura apart from discussions of Benjamin. Recent work with reference to Benjamin is abundant, however. Eight of the thirty essays in Hans Ulrich Gum- brecht and Michael Marrinan, eds., Mapping Benjamin: The Work of Art in the Digital Age (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), address the topic directly. See also Robert Kaufman, “Aura, Still,” October , no. 99 (2002): 45–80; Lutz Koepnick, “Aura Reconsidered: Benjamin and Contempo- rary Visual Culture,” in Benjamin’s Ghosts: Interventions in Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory , ed. Gerhard Richter (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 95–117; Willem van Reijen, “Breathing the Aura—the Holy, the Sober Breath,” Theory, Culture, and Society 18, no. 6 (2001): 31–50; and several essays in Lise Patt, ed., Benjamin’s Blind Spot: Walter Benjamin and the Premature Death of Aura (Topanga, CA: Institute of Cultural Inquiry, 2001). 2. For brevity’s sake I omit a discussion of previous work on charisma in sociology, politics, and the humanities but refer the reader to Philip Smith, “Culture and Charisma: Outline of a Theory,” Acta Sociologica 43, no. 2 (2000): 101–11; Charles Lindholm, Charisma (Cambridge, MA: Black- well, 1990); and my book Enchantment: Charisma and the Sublime in the Arts of the West (Phila- delphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming). NGC114_02Jaeger_1pp.indd 17 7/27/11 5:01:13 PM