It has been fifty years since Theodor Adorno's Aesthetic Theory was first published in 1970, a year after his death. The work appeared at a historical moment when political tension on the left was at its height and the movements of pop art and postmodernism began eclipsing the modernist aesthetic values Adorno cherished. Aesthetic Theory was met with initial resistance, in part because its aesthetic criteria appeared antiquated. This issue reckons with the dialectical complexity of this often misunderstood and misinterpreted work. Essay topics include the metaphysics of landscapes, the potential of film as a medium for social critique, Adorno's conception of the spiritual in art, and a nuanced reading of his polemic against Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West. Bringing together philosophers, art historians, musicologists, and literary theorists, this issue shows that Aesthetic Theory still has lessons that extend beyond disciplinary bounds.

Contributors. J. M. Bernstein, Hent de Vries, Peter E. Gordon, Eva Geulen, Martin Jay, Sherry Lee, Max Pensky, with two additional essays on Adorno by Mikko Immanen and Ricardo Samaniego de la Fuente

About the Author
Peter E. Gordon is Amabel B. James Professor of History at Harvard University, author of Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos, and coeditor of A Companion to Adorno.


Book Information
ISBN 9781478017592
Author Peter E. Gordon
Format Paperback
Page Count 220
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press