Aesthetics and Politics
by Theodor Adorno
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Description
No other country and no other period has produced a tradition of major aesthetic debate to compare with that which unfolded in German culture from the 1930s to the 1950s. In Aesthetics and Politics the key texts of the great Marxist controversies over literature and art during these years are assembled in a single volume. They do not form a disparate collection but a continuous, interlinked debate between thinkers who have become giants of twentieth-century intellectual history.Tags
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A great book on theories of aesthetics, art, and the role of politics in the literary and the visual. The reader is easy enough to read, with great translations and background information provided in the introductions to the sections. I loved how the text was presented as a "dialogue," as the selections chosen were those of authors responding to each other's works critically and insightfully. A great read for anyone interested in the Frankfurt School of theory.
If we ever want to put a final date on the Enlightenment in the West, we could probably use this volume to argue that these men (all brilliant, all dedicated to socialism) were among its last exemplars. After them, only the white noise and chaos of a world where reason is definitively not in charge.
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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 show more 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) show less
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Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Radical Thinkers (13 - Set 2(1))
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Aesthetics and Politics
- Original publication date
- 2007
- People/Characters
- Walter Benjamin
Classifications
- Genres
- Literature Studies and Criticism, Nonfiction, Philosophy, General Nonfiction, Art & Design
- DDC/MDS
- 111.85 — Philosophy & psychology Metaphysics (existence, purpose, and the nature of reality) Ontology Properties of being Aesthetics
- LCC
- BH41 .A37 — Philosophy, Psychology and Religion Aesthetics Aesthetics
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 765
- Popularity
- 36,610
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.93)
- Languages
- English, Turkish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 10
- ASINs
- 5
