Theodor W. Adorno: An Introduction (Post-Contemporary Interventions) - Hardcover

Gerhard Schweppenhauser

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0822344548 ISBN 13: 9780822344544

Publisher: Duke University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) was one of the twentieth century's most important thinkers. Seeking to synthesize the essential insights of Western philosophy, Adorno revisited the ethical and sociological arguments of his predecessors - Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Walter Benjamin - in light of two pivotal twentieth-century developments: the rise of fascism, which culminated in the Holocaust, and the standardization of 'popular' culture as a commodity indispensable to contemporary capitalism. This volume, first published in Germany in 1996, provides a succinct introduction to Adorno's challenging and far-reaching thought. Gerhard Schweppenhauser, a leading German scholar of the Frankfurt School of critical theory (whose members included Adorno, Benjamin, and Horkheimer), explains Adorno's epistemology, social and political philosophy, aesthetics, and theory of culture. After providing a brief overview of Adorno's life, Schweppenhauser turns to the theorist's core philosophical concepts, including post-Kantian critique, determined negation, and the primacy of the object, as well as his view of the Enlightenment as a code for world domination, his diagnosis of modern mass culture as a program of social control, and his understanding of modernist aesthetics as a challenge to conceive an alternative politics. Along the way, Schweppenhauser illuminates the works widely considered Adorno's most important achievements: "Minima Moralia", "Dialectic of Enlightenment" (co-authored with Horkheimer), and "Negative Dialectics". Adorno wrote much of the first two of these during his years in California (1938-49), where he lived near Arnold Schoenberg and Thomas Mann, whom he assisted with the musical aesthetics at the centre of Mann's novel "Doctor Faustus". Expanding on the German edition, this volume includes additional information about Adorno's philosophy of music and more analysis of Benjamin's influence on his theory of art and mass culture.

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Review:

"This superb introduction to Adorno's complex and difficult work is full of extraordinary insights, which will benefit the old hands as well as the beginners."--Fredric Jameson, Duke University "This is a clear and concise overview of Theodor W. Adorno's philosophical, political, sociological, and aesthetic thought, written by a brilliant German theorist. Gerhard Schweppenhauser covers all the central topics in Adorno's writing, shows a firm grasp not only of his work but also of the secondary literature on it, and relates his thought to the more recent theoretical literature that has challenged it."--George Steinmetz, University of Michigan "Theodor W. Adorno: An Introduction is a useful survey of Adorno's thought. It is concise, written in plain language, and focused on the most important topics and themes of the theorist's work. Gerhard Schweppenhauser gives essential background about the intellectual and historical context of Adorno's thought and writings, and he makes a convincing case for the internal coherence of a complex and at times apparently heterogeneous body of work." --Uwe Steiner, Rice University

About the Author:

Gerhard Schweppenhauser is Professor of Design, Communication, and Media Theory at the University of Wurzburg in Germany. He has written many books building on the sociocultural, analytical mission of the Frankfurt School, including two focused on Adorno. James L. Rolleston is Professor Emeritus of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Duke University. He has written books on Kafka, Rilke, and modern German poetry. His translation of Bernd Witte's Walter Benjamin: An Intellectual Biography won the German Literary Prize of the American Translators Association. His and Kai Evers's translation of Peter Weiss's last play, The New Trial, is also published by Duke University Press.

About this edition

• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0822344548
• ISBN 13: 9780822344544
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 200