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This essay is a landmark in cultural criticism. Among other things, it asks what happens to a work of art when it can be so perfectly reproduced that there are no qualitative differences between the "original" and the copies - as with, say, film stock. The questions of what happens in the virtual reproduction of a classroom are different. But I think there are interesting analogies to be made. I wonder in particular about the loss of what Benjamin calls "aura" - of the ritual dimensions that are present in any really great class. Can those be reproduced? If not, what is lost? And - the question that makes Benjamin more interesting than some of his contemporaries - what might be gained?