Theodor W. Adorno

At first glance, Theodor W. Adorno’s critical social theory and Gershom Scholem’s scholarship of Jewish mysticism could not seem further removed from one another. Initially, they also harboured a mutual hostility. However, their first conversations in 1938 New York were the impetus for a profound intellectual friendship that lasted thirty years and produced more than 220 letters. These letters discuss...

Theodor Adorno (1903-69) was undoubtedly the foremost thinker of the Frankfurt School, the influential group of German thinkers that fled to the US in the 1930s, including such thinkers as Herbert Marcuse and Max Horkheimer. His work has proved enormously influential in sociology, philosophy, and cultural theory. Aesthetic Theory is Adorno's posthumous magnum opus and the culmination of a lifetime's...

This volume comprises Adorno's first lectures specifically dedicated to the subject of the dialectic, a concept which has been key to philosophical debate since classical times. While discussing connections with Plato and Kant, Adorno concentrates on the most systematic development of the dialectic in Hegel's philosophy, and its relationship to Marx, as well as elaborating his own conception of dialectical...

In autumn 1962, Theodor W. Adorno delivered a lecture on fighting antisemitism to the German Coordinating Council of Societies for Christian-Jewish Cooperation. This lecture remains as topical and urgent today as it was in the 1960s. After the Second World War, Germany grappled with a reluctance to admit collective guilt for the horrors of the Holocaust. German society was witnessing...

When Theodor W. Adorno returned to Germany from his exile in the United States, he was appointed as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Frankfurt and he immediately made a name for himself as a leading public intellectual. Adorno’s widespread influence on the postwar debates was due in part to the public lectures he gave outside of the...

When Theodor W. Adorno returned to Germany from his exile in the United States, he was appointed as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Frankfurt and he immediately made a name for himself as a leading public intellectual. Adorno’s widespread influence on the postwar debates was due in part to the public lectures he gave outside of the...

In summer 1960, Adorno gave the first of a series of lectures devoted to the relation between sociology and philosophy. One of his central concerns was to dispel the notion, erroneous in his view, that these were two incompatible disciplines, radically opposed in their methods and aims, a notion that was shared by many. While some sociologists were inclined to...

In this classic work of music theory, Adorno critiques two major composers, Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, whom he presents as dialectically opposed to one another in terms of their musical styles, techniques, and directions. Adorno’s readings, especially of Schoenberg, continue to cause controversy and disagreement among musicians, music lovers, and philosophers today. As always with Adorno, a wide range...

Essays by Adorno on art and cinema, available in English for the first time. In Without Model, Theodor W. Adorno strikingly demonstrates the intellectual range for which he is known. Taking the premise of the title as his guiding principle, that artistic and philosophical thought must eschew preconceptions and instead adapt itself to its time, circumstances, and object, Adorno presents...

A year after the end of the Second World War, the first International Summer Course for New Music took place in the Kranichstein Hunting Lodge, near the city of Darmstadt in Germany. The course, commonly referred to later as the Darmstadt course, was intended to familiarise young composers and musicians with the music that, only a few years earlier, had...

Beethoven is a classic study of the composer's music, written by one of the most important thinkers of our time. Throughout his life, Adorno wrote extensive notes, essay fragments, and aides-memoires on the subject of Beethoven's music. This book brings together all of Beethoven's music in relation to the society in which he lived. Adorno identifies three periods in Beethoven's...

Delves into Theodor W. Adorno's lesser-known musical career and successful music criticism. Theodor W. Adorno is recognised as one of the twentieth century's most prominent social theorists. Though best known for his association with the Frankfurt School of critical theory, Adorno began his career as a composer and successful music critic. Comprehensive and illuminating, Orpheus in the Underworld centres on...

My dears: this is but a brief note to welcome you to the new world, where you are now no longer all too far away from us. So begins Adorno’s letter to his parents in May 1939, welcoming them to Cuba where they had just arrived after fleeing from Nazi Germany at the last minute. At the end of 1939...

On 6 April 1967, at the invitation of the Socialist Students of Austria at the University of Vienna, Theodor W. Adorno gave a lecture which is not merely of historical interest. Against the background of the rise of the National Democratic Party of Germany, which had enjoyed remarkable electoral success in the first two years after its formation in November...

This volume comprises one of the key lecture courses leading up to the publication in 1966 of Adorno's major work, Negative Dialectics. These lectures focus on developing the concepts critical to the introductory section of that book. They show Adorno as an embattled philosopher defining his own methodology among the prevailing trends of the time. As a critical theorist, he...

This volume of lectures on aesthetics, given by Adorno in the winter semester of 1958–9, formed the foundation for his later Aesthetic Theory, widely regarded as one of his greatest works. The lectures cover a wide range of topics, from an intense analysis of the work of Georg Lukács to a sustained reflection on the theory of aesthetic experience. Adorno...

This volume makes available in English for the first time Adorno's lectures on metaphysics. It provides a unique introduction not only to metaphysics but also to Adorno's own intellectual standpoint, as developed in his major work Negative Dialectics. Metaphysics for Adorno is defined by a central tension between concepts and immediate facts. Adorno traces this dualism back to Aristotle, whom...

Essays by Theodor W. Adorno on art and cinema. In Without Model, Theodor W. Adorno strikingly demonstrates the intellectual range for which he is known. Taking the premise of the title as his guiding principle, that artistic and philosophical thought must eschew preconceptions and instead adapt itself to its time, circumstances, and object, Adorno presents a series of essays reflecting...