Adorno - A Biography - A Biography

Informationen zum Autor Stefan Müller-Doohm isProfessor of Sociology at Oldenburg University, Germany. Klappentext 'Even the biographical individual is a social category', wrote Adorno. 'It can only be defined in a living context together with others.' In this major new biography, Stefan Müller-Doohm turns this maxim back on Adorno himself and provides a rich and comprehensive account of the life and work of one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century.This authoritative biography ranges across the whole of Adorno's life and career, from his childhood and student years to his years in emigration in the United States and his return to postwar Germany. At the same time, Muller-Doohm examines the full range of Adorno's writings on philosophy, sociology, literary theory, music theory and cultural criticism. Drawing on an array of sources from Adorno's personal correspondence with Horkheimer, Benjamin, Berg, Marcuse, Kracauer and Mann to interviews, notes and both published and unpublished writings, Muller-Doohm situates Adorno's contributions in the context of his times and provides a rich and balanced appraisal of his significance in the 20th Century as a whole.Müller-Doohm's clear prose succeeds in making accessible some of the most complex areas of Adorno's thought. This outstanding biography will be the standard work on Adorno for years to come. Zusammenfassung 'Even the biographical individual is a social category', wrote Adorno. 'It can only be defined in a living context together with others.' In this major new biography, Stefan Müller-Doohm turns this maxim back on Adorno himself and provides a rich and comprehensive account of the life and work of one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century.This authoritative biography ranges across the whole of Adorno's life and career, from his childhood and student years to his years in emigration in the United States and his return to postwar Germany. At the same time, Muller-Doohm examines the full range of Adorno's writings on philosophy, sociology, literary theory, music theory and cultural criticism. Drawing on an array of sources from Adorno's personal correspondence with Horkheimer, Benjamin, Berg, Marcuse, Kracauer and Mann to interviews, notes and both published and unpublished writings, Muller-Doohm situates Adorno's contributions in the context of his times and provides a rich and balanced appraisal of his significance in the 20th Century as a whole.Müller-Doohm's clear prose succeeds in making accessible some of the most complex areas of Adorno's thought. This outstanding biography will be the standard work on Adorno for years to come. Inhaltsverzeichnis List of Figures viii List of Plates ix Preface xii Acknowledgements xiv Illustration Acknowledgements xvi Part I Origins: Family, Childhood and Youth: School and University in Frankfurt am Main Family Inheritance: A Picture of Contrasts 3 1 Adorno's Corsican Grandfather: Jean François, alias Giovanni Francesco 5 ¿ Fencing master Calvelli-Adorno in the Frankfurt suburb of Bockenheim 8 2 Wiesengrund: The Jewish Heritage of his Father's Romantic Name 13 ¿ A generous father and two musical mothers 15 3 Between Oberrad and Amorbach 25 ¿ School experiences of a precocious youth 32 ¿ Arousing philosophical interests in the musical soul: Kracauer's influence on Adorno 37 4 Éducation sentimentale 52 ¿ First love and a number of affairs 55 Part II A Change of Scene: Between Frankfurt, Vienna and Berlin: A Profusion of Intellectual Interests Commuting between Philosophy and Music 67 5 Against the Stream: The City of Frankfurt and its University 69 ¿ First meeting with Max Horkheimer in the seminar on gestalt psychology 74 6 A Man with Philosophical Qualities in the World of Viennese Music: The Danube Metropol...

List of contents

List of Figures.
 
List of Plates.
 
Preface.
 
Acknowledgements.
 
Illustration Acknowledgements.
 
Part I. Origins: Family, Childhood and Youth: School and University in Frankfurt am Main.
 
Family Inheritance: A Picture of Contracts.
 
1. Adorno's Corsican Grandfather: Jean François, alias Giovanni Francesco.
 
2. Wiesengrund: The Jewish Heritage of his Father's Romantic Name.
 
3. Between Oberrad and Amorbach.
 
4. Education Sentimentale.
 
Part II. A Change of Scene: Between Frankfurt, Vienna and Berlin: A Profusion of Intellectual Interests.
 
Commuting Between Philosophy and Music.
 
5. Against the Stream: The City of Frankfurt and its University.
 
6. A Man with Philosophical Qualities in the World of Viennese Music: The Danube Metropolis.
 
7. In Search of Career.
 
8. Music Criticism and Compositional Practice.
 
9. Towards a Theory of Aesthetics.
 
10. A Second Anomaly in Frankfurt: The Institute of Social Research.
 
Part III. Emigration Years: An Itellectual in Foreign Land.
 
A Twofold Exile: Intellectual Homelessness as Personal Fate.
 
11. The 'Coordination" of the National Socialist Nation and Adorno's Reluctant Emigration.
 
12. Between Academic and Authentic Concerns: From Philosophy Lecturer to Advanced Students in Oxford.
 
13. Writing Letters as an aid to Philosophical.
 
14. Learning by Doing: Adorno's Path to Social Research.
 
15. Happiness in Misfortune: Adorno's Years in California.
 
Part IV: Thinking the Unconditional and Enduring the Conditional.
 
The Explosive Power of Saying No.
 
16. Change of Scene: Surveying the Ruins.
 
17. Gaining Recognition for Critical Theory: Adorno's Activities in the Late 1950s and Early 1960s.
 
18. Eating Bread: A Theory Devoured by Thought.
 
19. With his Back to the Wall.
 
Epilogue: Thinking Against Oneself.
 
Notes.
 
References and Bibliography.
 
Index.

Report

"Although Adorno died in 1969, we have had to wait more than thirty years for a biography ... Stefan Müller-Doohm's is the most detailed and probably the best. (It has been exceptionally well translated, too.)"
Times Literary Supplement
 
"Stands as a very informative account of Adorno's life, which has much to offer casual readers of Adorno and those with a thorough interest in his work [and] ties a narrative description of Adorno's life to a sensitive understanding of his thought, and of the consistency of his reflection across the different disciplinary boundaries that it traversed ... This book does all the things a biography should."
Times Higher Education Supplement
 
"Exhaustively researched and presented with exemplary balance, Müller-Doohm's re-creation of Adorno's 'damaged life' is fully worthy of its demanding subject. No future student of one of the twentieth century's most influential thinkers will be able to ignore this remarkable achievement in intellectual biography."
Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley

Product details

• Authors: Stefan M. Ller-Doohm, Stefan M?ller-Doohm, Stefan Mã1/4ller-Doohm, S Muller-Doohm, Stefan Muller-Doohm, Stefan (Oldenburg University) Muller-Doohm, Stefan/ Livingstone Muller-Doohm, Stefan Müller-Doohm, Stefan Muller-D
• Assisted by: Rodney Livingstone (Translation), Livingstone Rodney (Translation)
• Publisher: Polity Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 19.12.2008
• EAN: 9780745631097
• ISBN: 978-0-7456-3109-7
• No. of pages: 648
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: antiquity to present day; Soziologie, Philosophie, Kulturwissenschaften, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Philosophy, Allg. Soziologie, Allg. Kulturwissenschaften, Allg. Philosophie