gogogo
Syndetics cover image
Image from Syndetics

Aesthetic theory Theodor W. Adorno. Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann, ed. Newly transl., ed., and with a transl. introd. by Robert Hullot-Kentor

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextLanguage: English Original language: German Publication details: London New York Continuum 2004Description: XXIII, 471p. 20 cmISBN:
  • 0826476910
  • 9780826476913
DDC classification:
  • 193 ADO
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode
Standard Loan LSAD Library Main Collection 193 ADO (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 39002100377689

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Theodor Adorno is the foremost thinker of the Frankfurt School, the extraordinarily influential group of German thinkers that fled to the US in the 1930s. This book is his classic discussion of the sublime, the ugly and the beautiful 'Art is the sedimentation of human misery'.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Theodor W. Adorno is the progenitor of critical theory, a central figure in aesthetics, and the century's foremost philosopher of music. He was born and educated in Frankfurt, Germany. After completing his Ph.D. in philosophy, he went to Vienna, where he studied composition with Alban Berg. He soon was bitterly disappointed with his own lack of talent and turned to musicology.

In 1928 Adorno returned to Frankfurt to join the Institute for Social Research, commonly known as The Frankfurt School. At first a privately endowed center for Marxist studies, the school was merged with Frankfort's university under Adorno's directorship in the 1950s. As a refugee from Nazi Germany during World War II, Adorno lived for several years in Los Angeles before returning to Frankfurt. Much of his most significant work was produced at that time.

Critics find Adorno's aesthetics to be rich in insight, even when they disagree with its broad conclusions. Although Adorno was hostile to jazz and popular music, he advanced the cause of contemporary music by writing seminal studies of many key composers. To the distress of some of his admirers, he remained pessimistic about the prospects for art in mass society.

Adorno was a neo-Marxist who believed that the only hope for democracy was to be found in an interpretation of Marxism opposed to both positivism and dogmatic materialism. His opposition to positivisim and advocacy of a method of dialectics grounded in critical rationalism propelled him into intellectual conflict with Georg Hegel, Martin Heidegger, and Heideggerian hermeneutics.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Powered by Koha