Adorno

Theodor W. Adorno (1903-69) is increasingly regarded as the most important contributor to twentieth-century German aesthetics. Well-read in German and French literature, he studied composition with Alban Berg and considered a career as a concert pianist. His many volumes of writings on music, philosophy and culture are divided between dense philosophical theory and a relatively more accessible body of musical and literary criticism. However, Adorno has a mixed reputation. Aesthetic Theory (1997 [1970]) and other major works are repetitive, obscure and devoid of straightforward argumentation or clear organization – perhaps intentionally so. The more accessible essays strike many readers as the unjustified ravings of a pessimistic elitist. Sympathetic readers excuse these apparent faults as marks of integrity and as the only writing strategies available to a philosopher who has come to doubt modern philosophy’s ability to address the human condition. As such, his obscurities and exaggerations appear to be deliberate, defensible strategies for liberating readers from historically acquired blinders. He warned that the nuances of his German writings are untranslatable. Adorno was born in Frankfurt am Main. He attended and then taught at Frankfurt’s

Goethe University, leading to his lifelong association with its Institute for Social Research. Nicknamed “The Frankfurt School,” its membership preferred the label of “critical theory.” In 1933, the Institute’s neo-Marxist slant and concentration of Jewish intellectuals made it a target of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist government. However, the Institute’s financial independence permitted relocation outside Germany. Adorno fled to England in 1934. In 1938 the Institute secured him temporary funding to do research on the sociological impact of radio music broadcasts. Relocating to New York City, his views and methodology soon led to a termination of funding. He moved to Southern California, where he wrote extensively on music and popular culture and became an American citizen. He advised fellow exile Thomas Mann on the aesthetics of avant-garde music espoused in the novel Doctor Faustus. Dialectic of Enlightenment, cowritten with Max Horkheimer (2007 [1947]), remains an influential denial of cultural progress and a core document in critical theory. Adorno returned to Germany in 1949, resumed teaching, became the Institute’s director in 1960, and was a prominent public intellectual. His long-anticipated Aesthetic Theory was nearly complete when he died suddenly in 1969. It appeared posthumously the next year.