Adorno and Performance

by Daddario, Will; Gritzner, Karoline

• ISBN13: 9781137429872
• ISBN10: 1137429879
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-10-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

The work of the leading Frankfurt School philosopher Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) continues to have an immense influence on contemporary cultural and critical theory, sociology, musicology, aesthetics, and political thought. Just as Adorno's theoretical approach spans a wide interdisciplinary terrain, so too does the emerging field of performance philosophy bring many disciplinary approaches together to articulate a renewed understanding of the practice of philosophy and the philosophical dimensions of performance. Adorno and Performance argues for the 'actuality' of Adorno's philosophy of art and dialectical criticism for the discipline of performance philosophy, where, following Max Pensky, the term actuality refers to both 'relevance for the present and its concerns' or 'up to date,' 'still in fashion.' The volume's essays work through Adorno's philosophy as it relates to theatre, drama, music, aesthetics, everyday life, the relation of art to society, theory to practice, and other domains of 'performance.'

Author Biography

Will Daddario is an Assistant Professor at Illinois State University, USA. He is Chair of the Performance and Philosophy Working Group within Performance Studies international and a core convener of Performance Philosophy. He is also co-editor with Laura Cull of Manifesto Now! Instructions for Performance, Philosophy, Politics (Intellect, 2013).

Karoline Gritzner is a Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies at Aberystwyth University, UK, and a core convener of Performance Philosophy. She is co-editor with David Ian Rabey of Theatre of Catastrophe: New Essays on Howard Barker, and editor of Eroticism and Death in Theatre and Performance (2010).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Thinking Adorno and Performance; Will Daddario and Karoline Gritzner
2. Of Adorno's Beckett; Michal Kobialka
3. Thoughts which do not understand themselves: On Adorno's Dream Notes; Karoline Gritzner
4. Performativisation and the Rescue of the Aesthetic Semblance; Andrea Sakoparnig
5. On the 'difference between preaching an ideal and giving artistic form to the historical tension inherent in it'; Mischa Twitchin
6. Cooking Up a Theory of Performing; Anthony Gritten
7. Thinking Performance in Neoliberal Times: Adorno Encounters Neutral Hero; Ioana Jucan
8. Pleasing Shapes and Other Devilry: an Adornian Investigation of La Pocha Nostra Praxis; Stephen Robins
9. Thinking – Mimesis – Pre-Imitation: Notes on Art, Philosophy and Theatre in Adorno's Aesthetic Theory; Marcus Quent
10. On the Theatricality of Art; Anja Nowak
11. Adorno and Performance: Thinking with the Movement of Language; Birgit Hofstaetter
12. What is Adorno Doing? Immanent Critique as Philosophical Performance; Mattias Martinson
13. The Vanity of Happiness: Adorno and Self-Performance; Julie Kuhlken
14. Writing as Life Performed; Martin Parker Dixon
Bibliography
Index