UC BERKELEY’S PROGRAM IN CRITICAL THEORY PRESENTS: Two Adorno-Related Events, with Peter E. Gordon

Two Events with Peter E. Gordon
Peter E. Gordon, Amabel B. James Professor of History, Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, and Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Philosophy, Harvard University
“A Precarious Happiness: Adorno on Negativity and Normativity“

Monday, March 15, 5–7 pm PST
Online, register here to receive a personalized Zoom link to join the webinar.

It is a commonplace view that Adorno subscribes to a doctrine of “epistemic negativism,” or “austere negativism.” On this interpretation, Adorno denies that we can have any knowledge of the good, since our society is wholly false. Gordon’s talk offers, first, some arguments against this commonplace reading of Adorno’s work and, second, proposes an alternative explanation for the normativity that underwrites his criticism. First, Gordon argues that the epistemic negativist interpretation is overstated, insofar as it presents society as a) uniform and b) closed; meanwhile, it also leaves Adorno with no resources to defend his theory’s own self-reflexive possibility. Second, against the epistemic negativist interpretation, Gordon argues that Adorno’s practice of immanent critique can succeed only because he acknowledges normative resources in the midst of our false society. This is one underlying commonality between Adorno and Marx. These normative resources are available to us not primarily as concepts but as experiential “traces” of sensuous happiness. In this respect Adorno subscribes to a species “materialism,” broadly construed. But Adorno’s commitment to such sensuous or aesthetic experiences does not leave him vulnerable to charges of hedonism or aestheticism; on the contrary, he insists that these very experiences themselves are precarious: they register the damage of our damaged world even as they also point beyond it…(more)

Seminar/Conversation with Peter E. Gordon on “Adorno, Negativity, and Normativity”—Including a Discussion of the “Meditations on Metaphysics” section of Adorno’s book Negative Dialectics (1966)

Tuesday, March 16, 5-7 pm PST
Online, register here to receive a personalized Zoom link to join the webinar.

Please join The Program in Critical Theory as it presents Professor Peter E. Gordon of Harvard University in conversation with Martin Jay, UC Berkeley (History; Program in Critical Theory), Pardis Dabashi, University of Nevada, Reno (English), and Robert Kaufman, UC Berkeley (Comparative Literature; Program in Critical Theory). After presentations and colloquy among the panelists, discussion will open to attendees. Those attending are asked to read the “Meditations on Metaphysics” section of Adorno’s Negative Dialectics. An open-source version of Dennis Redmond’s English-language translation of Negative Dialectics can be accessed at any of these three sites:

https://www.academia.edu/39707967/Negative_Dialectics
https://libcom.org/library/negative-dialectics-theodor-adorno
https://dennisredmond.weebly.com/publications.html…(more)

The Program in Critical Theory offers a Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory to UC Berkeley doctoral students doing innovative theoretical work in the social sciences, arts, and humanities. In addition to offering coursework on nineteenth-century social theory and philosophy, Frankfurt School and related twentieth-century currents in theory and criticism, and contemporary engagements with critical theory traditions, the Program sponsors graduate fellowships, hosts visiting scholars, and presents lectures, seminars, and symposia for the Berkeley campus and Bay Area community.

To receive regular announcements about The Program in Critical Theory, we invite you to sign up for our mailing list. For more information, or to make a donation, please visit criticaltheory.berkeley.edu.