16 Tuesday Jul 2024
Posted in Publications, Theodor W. Adorno
Lambert Zuidervaart’s recent book on Adorno, Heidegger, and the Politics of Truth is coming out in paperback next month, and SUNY Press is providing a pre-publication discount for the paperback edition. Find below the information Lambert sent us and buy the book here.
05 Wednesday Jun 2024
Posted in Publications, Theodor W. Adorno
Peter E. Gordon published a fascinating new book on Adorno earlier this year, entitled A Precarious Happiness: Adorno and The Sources of Normativity (Chicago UP). Here‘s the link to the publisher’s website. And here’s the publisher’s blurb:
“A strikingly original account of Theodor Adorno’s work as a critique animated by happiness.
“Gordon’s confidently gripping and persistently subtle interpretation brings a new tone to the debate about Adorno’s negativism.”—Jürgen Habermas
Theodor Adorno is often portrayed as a totalizing negativist, a scowling contrarian who looked upon modern society with despair. Peter E. Gordon thinks we have this wrong: if Adorno is uncompromising in his critique, it is because he sees in modernity an unfulfilled possibility of human flourishing. In a damaged world, Gordon argues, all happiness is likewise damaged but not wholly absent. Through a comprehensive rereading of Adorno’s work, A Precarious Happiness recovers Adorno’s commitment to traces of happiness—fragments of the good amid the bad. Ultimately, Gordon argues that social criticism, while exposing falsehoods, must also cast a vision for an unrealized better world.”
21 Thursday Mar 2024
Posted in Critical Theory, Publications, Theodor W. Adorno, Uncategorized
Vassilis Grollios wrote about the publication of his new book at Routledge. The full title reads: Illusion and Fetishism in Critical Theory: A Study of Nietzsche, Benjamin, Castoriadis and the Situationists. Here’s the link and here the publisher’s blurb:
“Through the negative dialectics of Theodore Adorno, Illusion and Fetishism in Critical Theory offers an examination of Nietzsche, Benjamin, Castoriadis and the Situationists, who put the concept of illusion at the forefront of their philosophical thought.
Vasilis Grollios argues that these political philosophers, except Castoriadis, have up to now been wrongly considered by many scholars to be far from the line of thinking of negative dialectics, Critical Theory and the early Frankfurt School/Open Marxist tradition. He illustrates how these thinkers focused on the illusions of capitalism and attempted to show how capitalism, by its innate rationale, creates social forms that are presented as unavoidable and universal, yet are historically specific and of dubious sustainability.
Providing a unique overview of concepts including illusion, totality, fetishization, contradiction, identity thinking and dialectics, Grollios expertly reveals how their understanding of critique can help us open cracks in capitalism and radicalize democratic social practice today. Illusion and Fetishism in Critical Theory is a must read for scholars of political theory and political philosophy, critical theory, the Frankfurt School, sociology and democratic theory.”
08 Monday Jan 2024
Posted in Critical Theory, Publications, Theodor W. Adorno
Lambert Zuidervaart (Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Institute for Christian Studies and University of Toronto) wrote to us today about his new book: Adorno, Heidegger, and the Politics of Truth, which will appear at SUNY Press in February. You can find the details here. Lambert also published a blog post about his book: “Hope for Truth in a Post-Truth World”, which you can read it here.
Here’s the blurb from the publisher:
“An elusive and complex idea of truth lies at the center of Theodor Adorno’s thought. Yet he never spells out what it is. Through close readings of Negative Dialectics, Aesthetic Theory, and related course lectures, Lambert Zuidervaart reconstructs Adorno’s conception of truth, contrasts it with the conceptions of Martin Heidegger and Michel Foucault, and explores its relevance for contemporary philosophy, art, and politics. Adorno regards truth as a dynamic constellation in which various dialectical polarities intersect. The most decisive polarity, Zuidervaart argues, occurs between society as it has developed and the historical possibility of a completely transformed world. Critically reconstructed, Adorno’s conception of truth can help inspire hopeful critiques of an allegedly post-truth society.”
And here’s a review:
“Zuidervaart, who already published numerable books on critical theory in general and Adorno in particular, again shows himself to be an excellent and critical reader of Adorno. The greatest strength of Adorno, Heidegger, and the Politics of Truth is that it offers an in-depth study of Adorno’s concept of truth, based on a thorough reading and understanding, and an original and critical interpretation of Adorno’s work. It also surpasses that in demonstrating the need for a conception of ‘truth as a whole’ beyond propositional truth, and the need to link the concept of truth to social critique and social hope. All this makes this book a must-read for Adorno scholars.” — Thijs Lijster, author of Benjamin and Adorno on Art and Art Criticism: Critique of Art
19 Tuesday Sep 2023
Posted in Critical Theory, Publications, Theodor W. Adorno
Estelle Ferrarese wrote to us about the publication of her new book: Le marché de la vertu. Critique de la consommation éthique (tentative English title: The Market of Virtue: Critique of Ethical Consumption). The book appeared at the legendary Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, located on the Place de la Sorbonne in Paris. The book is, of course, in French. At our last meeting in Brighton, UK (May 2023), Estelle Ferrarese presented some of her latest work – or the rough equivalent of a chapter of this new book. The title of her presentation was: “Reactualizing Adorno’s Theory of Exchange: A Critique of Ethical Consumption”.
Here’s the publisher’s blub:
“La propagation actuelle de pratiques de consommation prônant un « juste » prix ou des achats « responsables », fonde son succès sur une prétendue critique du capitalisme à l’échelle de la vie quotidienne.
Ce livre prend le contrepied de l’opinion dominante et démontre avec les outils de la Théorie critique que la consommation éthique collabore à l’ordre même auquel elle s’efforce d’échapper. Elle dissimule le fait que le marché désarme perpétuellement les normes morales qui y sont injectées. Elle ramène inadéquatement le capitalisme à des mécanismes psychologiques, comme une humeur prédatrice, qu’il serait possible de brider par la vertu. Elle octroie à l’intention individuelle une maîtrise absolue sur le monde, à même de le métamorphoser sans reste. Et avec sa tendance au compte – des dommages ou des efforts vertueux –, la consommation éthique concourt à la forme que le marché impose au monde, celle d’une commensurabilité généralisée.”
10 Monday Jul 2023
Bence Kun wrote to announce the publication of his book on Adorno next fall at De Gruyter, which should be of interests to readers of this blog. At he puts it, “the work deals with Adorno’s concept of playfulness and horror, focusing on his philosophical rhetoric and ‘Negative Dialectics’.”
And here’s the publisher’s blurb:
“Long before Wittgenstein drew attention to its complexities, the concept of play had captured the interest of theorists for millennia. How do games contribute to our knowledge of the world? Wherein lies their universal appeal? Play is usually associated with a certain blitheness and buoyancy – could it nevertheless be argued that playfulness is not quite as innocent as it might seem?
Bence Kun draws on Adorno’s writings to explore the relation between philosophical play (understood here as imaginative thought as well as experimental expression) and an experience of dread Adorno links to children’s first encounter with death. By investigating his less familiar works, some of which have not yet been translated, Kun challenges the received view on Adorno’s approach to metaphysics, the role of systematic inquiry and the modern condition. As he has Adorno say, the originary impression of shock at the heart of philosophical reflection can only be fully apprehended through an open-ended and defiantly creative intellectual practice.”
The release date is Oct. 23!
28 Thursday Oct 2021
Posted in Publications, Uncategorized
Tags
Alain Badiou, Brian O'Connor, Event, Negative Dialectics, Theodor W. Adorno, Vangelis Giannakakis
Vangelis Giannakakis wrote to us about his new book, which might be of interest to our readers. His book is entitled Negative Dialectics and Event: Non-Identity, Event and the Historical Adequacy of Consciousness. It is published at Lexington Books with a foreword by Brian O’Connor.
Here’s the editor’s blurb:
“History is replete with false and unfulfilled promises, as well as singular acts of courage, resilience, and ingenuity. These episodes have led to significant changes in the way people think and act in the world or have set the stage for such transformations in the form of rational expectations in theory and the hopeful anticipations of dialectical imagination.
Negative Dialectics and Event: Nonidentity, Culture, and the Historical Adequacy of Consciousness revisits some of Theodor W. Adorno’s most influential writings and theoretical interventions to argue not only that his philosophy is uniquely suited to bring such events into sharp relief and reflect on their entailments but also that an effective historical consciousness today would be a consciousness awake to the events that interpellate and shape it into existence.
More broadly, Vangelis Giannakakis presents a compelling argument in support of the view that the critical theory developed by the first generation of the Frankfurt School still has much to offer in terms of both cultivating insights into contemporary human experience and building resistance against states of affairs that impede human flourishing and happiness.”
The book can be purchased on the publisher’s site – discount code for a 30% off: LEX30AUTH21 (valid until 12/31/2021).
13 Monday Sep 2021
Posted in Critical Theory, Frankfurt School, Publications, Theodor W. Adorno
Samir Gandesha, Johan H. Hartle and Stefano Marino have published a new edited volume, The “Aging” of Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory. Fifty Years Later, with Mimesis International.
If 2019 was an “Adornian year” because of the 50th anniversary of the untimely death of Theodor W. Adorno in August 1969, also 2020 has been an “Adornian year” because of the 50th anniversary of the posthumous publication of Adorno’s great but unfinished masterpiece Aesthetic Theory, first published in 1970. Adorno’s intellectual legacy is still alive today and indeed important for the conceptual tools as it still provides to develop a critical, active and negative (instead than acritical, passive and affirmative) relationship with the real. In the vast and complex corpus of Adorno’s entire philosophical oeuvre, his aesthetic theory deserves an especially close and renewed attention today for the variety of intellectual provocations that are still richly offered to us in order to critically understand our age.
Find out more about the book here: http://mimesisinternational.com/the-aging-of-adornos…/
13 Monday Sep 2021
Madeline Sharaga has written to us on behalf of Polity Press about two new titles that may be of interest to members of the Association
Polity Press is also offering a discount :
To get 20% off these titles, go to www.politybooks.com and use code ADR21 at checkout.
Offer expires 31 October 2021.
13 Monday Sep 2021
Posted in Publications, Theodor W. Adorno, Uncategorized
Caleb J. Basnett has published a new book: Adorno, Politics, and the Aesthetic Animal with the University of Toronto Press.
Here is the blurb from the publisher’s website:
Built upon the principle that divides and elevates humans above other animals, humanism is the cornerstone of a worldview that sanctifies inequality and threatens all animal life. Adorno, Politics, and the Aesthetic Animal analyses this state of affairs and suggests an alternative – a way for humanity to make itself into a new kind of animal.
Theodor W. Adorno has been accused of leading critical theory into a blind alley, divorced from practical social and political concerns. In Adorno, Politics, and the Aesthetic Animal, Caleb J. Basnett argues that by placing the problem of the human/animal distinction at the centre of Adorno’s thought, we discover a new Adorno, one whose critique of domination is in dialogue with classic concerns of political thought forged by Aristotle, including questions of humanist political education and the role of art.
Through a close reading of primary sources, Basnett identifies the principal conceptual structure entwined with the understanding of human life as antagonistic to other animals, and outlines how forms of aesthetic experience disrupt this problematic concept in favour of a reconceptualization of what we call human. His analysis displaces the centrality of the human and attempts to open up a space for its transformation, both in terms of how humans relate to each other and in how humans relate to other animals.
More information can be found here:
https://utorontopress.com/9781487541446/adorno-politics-and-the-aesthetic-animal/