Adorno A Biography

by Müller-Doohm, Stefan; Livingstone, Rodney

• ISBN13: 9780745631097
• ISBN10: 0745631096
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-02-17
• Publisher: Polity

Summary

'Even the biographical individual is a social category', wrote Adorno. 'It can only be defined in a living context together with others.' In this major new biography, Stefan Muller-Doohm turns this maxim back on Adorno himself and provides a rich and comprehensive account of the life and work of one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century.This authoritative biography ranges across the whole of Adorno's life and career, from his childhood and student years to his years in emigration in the United States and his return to postwar Germany. At the same time, Muller-Doohm examines the full range of Adorno's writings on philosophy, sociology, literary theory, music theory and cultural criticism. Drawing on an array of sources from Adorno's personal correspondence with Horkheimer, Benjamin, Berg, Marcuse, Kracauer and Mann to interviews, notes and both published and unpublished writings, Muller-Doohm situates Adorno's contributions in the context of his times and provides a rich and balanced appraisal of his significance in the 20th Century as a whole.Muller-Doohm's clear prose succeeds in making accessible some of the most complex areas of Adorno's thought. This outstanding biography will be the standard work on Adorno for years to come.

Author Biography

Stefan Müller-Doohm isProfessor of Sociology at Oldenburg University, Germany.

Table of Contents

Preface

Origins: Family, Childhood and Youth School and University in Frankfurt am Main Family inheritance: a picture of contrasts

His Corsican grandfather: Jean Frantois alias Giovanni Francesco Fencing teacher Calvelli-Adorno in the Frankfurt suburb of Bockenheim

Wiesengrund: the Jewish heritage of his father's romantic name A generous father; two musical mothers

Between Sachsenhausen and Amorbach School experiences of a precocious youth

Arousing philosophical interests in a musical soul

Kracauer's influence on Adorno

+ducation sentimentale First love and a number of affairs

A change of scene: between Frankfurt, Vienna and Berlin A profusion of intellectual interests Commuting between philosophy and music

Against the stream: The city of Frankfurt and its university First meeting with Max Horkheimer in the seminar for gestalt psychology

A man with philosophical qualities in the world of Viennese music: the Danube metropolis Apprenticeship with his `lord and master'

In search of a career Between philosophy and music: No parting of the ways

Music criticism and compositional practice Theorizing the twelve-tone method

Adorno's debate with Krenek

Approaching a theory of aesthetics Rather more than a beginner's foray into philosophy

A second anomaly in Frankfurt: The Institute of Social Research Two inaugural lectures A Privatdozent in the shadow of Walter Benjamin The Zeitschrift fnr Sozialforschung and Adorno's ideological critique of music In league with Horkheimer against a second school of sociology under the same roof

The opera project: The Treasure of Indian Joe

Emigration years: an intellectual in a foreign land A twofold exile: intellectual homelessness as personal fate

The `co-ordination' of the National Socialist nation and Adorno's hesitations about going into exile Hibernating with dignity?

Between academic and authentic concerns The philosophy lecturer as an advanced student in Oxford Sticks and carrots An abiding distaste

Jazz as a tolerated excess Setbacks... ... and personal losses

Writing letters as an aid to philosophical self-clarification

Disputes with Benjamin, Sohn-Rethel and Kracauer A double relationship: Gretel and Max

Learning by doing

Adorno's path to social research In the Institute for Social Research on Morningside Heights Between the stools once again: A long road from New York to Los Angeles

Happiness in misfortune: Adorno's years in California Messages in a bottle or how to create enlightenment about the Enlightenment Merits of social research

Studies in the authoritarian personality Moral feelings in immoral times The Privy Councillor: Adorno and Thomas Mann

Thinking the unconditional and enduring the conditional The explosive power of saying No

Change of scene: surveying the ruins Taking part in postwar Germany? Back to America: horoscope analysis and TV research Letting the cat out of the bag: Kafka, Beckett, H÷lderlin

Gaining recognition for Critical Theory: Adorno's activities in the late 50s and early 60s In the stream, but swimming against it Speaking of the noose while in the hangman's house The crisis of the subject: self-preservation without a self The purpose of life: understanding the language of music Right living? Places, people, friendships

Eating bread. A theory devoured by thought The dispute about positivism

Via discourse to the Frankfurt School Against German stuffiness

The fat child What kind of a society do we live in?

Adorno's analysis of the present

With his back to the wall Patricide deferred

The futility of defending a theory as practice

Moments of happiness, despite everything

The divided nature of art Death

Epilogue

Thinking again

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.