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List of contents
1. Adorno and Marx: Negative Dialectics and the Critique of Political Economy, Werner Bonefeld and Chris O’Kane (University of York, UK and University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA)
Part I : Adorno and the New Reading of Marx
2. Cracking Economic Abstractions: Bringing Critical Theory Back-In, Werner Bonefeld (University of York, UK)
3. Adorno and the Critique of Political Economy, Dirk Braunstein and Niko Bobka (Institute of Social Research, Frankfurt, and University of Göttingen, Germany)
4. Adorno and the New reading of Marx, and Methodologies of Critique, Charlotte Baumann (Technische Universität Berlin, Germany)
5. Marxian Economics and the Critique of Political Economy, Chris O’Kane and Kirstin Munro (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA)
Part II : Critique of Political Economy as Negative Dialectic of Society
6. Economic Objectivity and Negative Dialectics: On Class and Struggle, Werner Bonefeld (University of York, UK)
7. The Liquidation of the Individual as a Critique of Political Economy, Fabian Arzuaga (College of William and Mary, USA)
8. Society as Real Abstraction: Adorno’s Critique of Economic Nature, Charles Prusik (Villanova University, USA)
9. Society Maintains itself despite all Catastrophes that may Eventuate: Critical Theory, Negative Totality, and Permanent Catastrophe, Chris O’Kane (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA)
Part III: Subjectivity and Pseudo Practice: on Social Praxis
10. Conceptuality and Social Practice, Werner Bonefeld (University of York, UK)
11. Non-identity, critique of labour and pseudo-praxis: extra-marginal palinlegomena on the dialectics of doing, Marcel Stoetzler (Bangor University, UK)
Appendix
12. Introduction to ‘Theodor W. Adorno on Marx and the Basic Concepts of Sociological Theory. From a Seminar Transcript in the Summer Semester of 1962, Chris O’Kane (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA)
13. Marx and the Basic Concepts of Sociological Theory: From a Seminar Transcript in the Summer Semester of 1962, Theodor W Adorno
About the author
Werner Bonefeld teaches in the Department of Politics at the University of York, UK. Before coming to York he taught at the Universities of Frankfurt and Edinburgh. He has conducted post-graduate seminars on critical theory at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, the Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla, adn at Universidad de Buenos Aires (2008). His work contributed to the development of the internationally recognised Open Marxism school.
Chris O’Kane is Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA.
Summary
While Adorno has tended to be read as a critic of the administered world and the consumer industry rather than a Marxist, Adorno and Marx establishes Adorno’s negative dialectics as fundamental for understanding Marx’s critique of political economy. This conception of the critique of political economy as a critical theory marks both a radical departure from traditional Marxist scholarship and from traditional readings of Adorno’s work and warns against identifying Adorno with Marx or Marx with Adorno. Rather, it highlights the intersection between Adorno’s critical theory and Marx’s critique of political economy that produces a critical theory of economic objectivity that moves beyond Marxian economics and Adornonian social theory.
Adorno and Marx offers an ingenious account of critical social theory. Its subversion of the economic categories of political economy contributes to the cutting-edge of contemporary social theory and its critique of social practice.
Foreword
The first book to expound Adorno’s negative dialectic as critical to the contemporary development of Marx’s critique of political economy.
Additional text
Adorno and Marx: Negative Dialectics and the Critique of Political Economy is an insightful collection of essays that adds to a growing body of Marxist scholarship correcting widespread misconceptions about both Marx’s critique of political economy and the Frankfurt School tradition of critical theory.
