Working Lives in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction: Uruk-Period Mesopotamia

Abstract

The notion of mechanical reproduction was made famous by Walter Benjamin in a 1936 essay. Benjamin was concerned with modern developments; in this paper I argue that a shift toward pervasive repetitiveness in work and thus a form of mechanical reproduction was already introduced in the Uruk period (4th millennium BCE) in southern Mesopotamia. I consider the ways in which work was conceptualized and structured in Uruk times, and by extension how innovations in the realm of work affected other spheres of life. My examination includes the production and use of pottery, buildings and their constituent mudbricks, durable imagery involving anthropomorphic depictions, and textiles.

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