World Food Books

Of Critical Theory and its Theorists
by Stephen Eric Bronner

1994, English
Softcover, 372 pages, 23 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Blackwell / Oxford Blackwell / Cambridge

$20.00 - In stock -

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No project holds a more prominent place in the development of modern European thought than critical theory. Usually associated with various members of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research of the 1920s and 1930s, critical theory has been enormously influential and quite controversial in its manifold claims.

Of Critical Theory and its Theorists provides unique interpretations of critical theory's most important representatives: Georg Lukács, Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Jürgen Habermas, and others.

Inspired by the interdisciplinary character of the original enterprise, Stephen Bronner ranges across many fields, from philosophy and aesthetics to politics and anthropology, reconstructing the radical aims of critical theory, and evaluating its successes, its failings, and its legacy.

Of Critical Theory and its Theorists offers a panoramic view of an exciting tradition, and a bold new perspective, from one of America's most prominent analysts of continental politics and philosophy.

"Has the foundation of critical theory been withdrawn with the collapse of communism? Stephen Eric Bronner argues the opposite: only now, liberated from marxian dogmatism, can a genuine critique of modern society begin. He develops his ideas in an immanent and emancipatory confrontation with critical theory and its proponents. A brilliant book! Don't miss it!"—Ulrich Beck

Stephen Eric Bronner is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University. His most recent works are Socialism Unbound and Moments of Decision: Political History and the Crises of Radicalism. He has also edited The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg and co-edited, with Douglas Kellner, the collection Critical Theory and Society.

Cover illustration: Paul Klee, Regie, 1930

VG copy.

File under: Stephen Eric Bronner Georg Lukács Walter Benjamin Theodor W. Adorno Herbert Marcuse Erich Fromm Jürgen Habermas Blackwell / Oxford Blackwell / Cambridge Theory / Essay Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare

Introduction to German Philosophy: From Kant to Habermas
by Andrew Bowie

2003, English
Softcover, 292 pages, 23 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by Polity / US

$35.00 - In stock -

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"One strength of this admirable introduction to modern German philosophy for English-speaking readers is the masterly manner in which Andrew Bowie manages to fairly structure an abundance of illuminating ideas."—JÜRGEN HABERMAS

"This is probably the most knowledgeable presentation in English of the history of the German contribution to so-called continental philosophy from Herder and Kant to Gadamer and Habermas. Andrew Bowie is an exceptional scholar of German Romanticism and Idealism as well as of the hermeneutic tradition and critical theory of the twentieth century."—MANFRED FRANK, EBERHARD-KARLS-UNIVERSITÄT TÜBINGEN

"This book has remarkable breadth. Not only does it cover a larger period of German thought than other similar books, but it also has a genuine appreciation for so-called "second-rank" figures (e.g., Herder, Schlegel, Schelling) and for a range of issues concerning aesthetics and society that go far beyond the narrow focus on epistemology and metaphysics that one typically finds in philosophical overviews."—KARL AMERIKS, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

Introduction to German Philosophy is the only book in English to provide a comprehensive account of the key ideas and arguments of modern German philosophy from Kant to the present. Andrew Bowie offers an accessible introduction to the work, among others, of Kant, Herder, Fichte, the Romantics, Schelling, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Frege, Wittgenstein, the Vienna Circle, Husserl, Heidegger, Benjamin, Adorno, Gadamer and Habermas. Modern German philosophy is proving to be more and more important to the study of all areas of the humanities. The book considers how that philosophy reacts to revolutionary changes in modern science, society and culture. The works of the philosophers are seen both as part of the wider traumatic history of Germany and as offering arguments which are central to debates in contemporary philosophy and theory in the humanities.

The book is clearly written, and makes complex arguments accessible without running the risk of oversimplification. It will be essential reading for students in philosophy, literature and the humanities in general and for anyone wanting to know more about the role of the German tradition within philosophy and literature as a whole.

ANDREW BOWIE is Chair of German and Founding Director of the Humanities and Arts Research Centre at Royal Holloway, University of London

Near Fine—Fine copy.

File under: F. W. J. Schelling Immanuel Kant G. W. F. Hegel Martin Heidegger Johann Gottlieb Fichte Theodor W. Adorno Hans-Georg Gadamer Gottlob Frege Jürgen Habermas Ludwig Wittgenstein Karl Marx Walter Benjamin Friedrich Nietzsche Johann Gottfried Herder Andrew Bowie Polity / US Philosophy Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay

The German Aesthetic Tradition
by Kai Hammermeister

1992, English
Softcover, 259 pages, 22.5 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by Cambridge University Press / Cambridge

$45.00 - In stock -

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First 2002 edition.

This is the only available systematic critical overview of German aesthetics from 1750 to the present. The book begins with the work of Baumgarten and covers all the major writers on German aesthetics that follow, including Kant, Schiller, Schelling, Hegel, Nietzsche up to Heidegger, Gadamer, and Adorno. The book offers a clear and non-technical exposition of ideas, placing these in a wider philosophical context where necessary.

Such is the importance of German aesthetics that the market for this book will extend far beyond the domain of philosophy to such fields as literary studies, fine art and music.

Kai Hammermeister teaches in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature at The Ohio State University

As New copy.

File under: Immanuel Kant Friedrich Schiller Martin Heidegger Theodor W. Adorno Friedrich Nietzsche G. W. F. Hegel Hans-Georg Gadamer Kai Hammermeister Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten Cambridge University Press / Cambridge Theory / Essay Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare

In the Shadow of Catastrophe: German Intellectuals Between Apocalypse and Enlightenmen
by Anson Rabinbach

2001, English
Softcover,‎ 252 pages, 22.4 x 15.4 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine

$45.00 - In stock -

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These essays by eminent European intellectual and cultural historian Anson Rabinbach address the writings of key figures in twentieth-century German philosophy. Rabinbach explores their ideas in relation to the two world wars and the horrors facing Europe at that time.

Analyzing the work of Benjamin and Bloch, he suggests their indebtedness to the traditions of Jewish messianism. In a discussion of Hugo Ball's little-known Critique of the German Intelligentsia, Rabinbach reveals the curious intellectual career of the Dadaist and antiwar activist turned-nationalist and anti-Semite. His examination of Heidegger's "Letter on Humanism" and Jaspers's The Question of German Guilt illuminates the complex and often obscure political referents of these texts. Turning to Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment, Rabinbach offers an arresting new interpretation of this central text of the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. Subtly and persuasively argued, his book will become an indispensable reference point for all concerned with twentieth-century German history and thought.

"We are largely in the dark about the connections between revolutionary visions and reactionary brutality, but Rabinbach invites us to confront these matters more candidly in relation to texts from the fascist era that are rarely considered together."—David S. Luft, "Central European History

"The quality of Rabinbach's intellectual history and his ability to write about highly complex texts in an accessible way are unassailable. His conviction that this German tradition of thought still exerts a strong intellectual and even political influence today makes In the Shadow of Catastrophe a direct and powerful intervention in current debates. This book is a gem!"—Andreas Huyssen, author of Twilight Memories

Anson Rabinbach is Professor of History at Princeton University. He is author of The Crisis of Austrian Socialism: From Red Vienna to Civil War, 1927-1934 (1983) and The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue and the Origins of Modernity (California, 1992).

As New copy.

File under: Hugo Ball Walter Benjamin Ernst Bloch Martin Heidegger Theodor W. Adorno Anson Rabinbach Hugo Ball Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Art Dada Sociology / Politics

Total Expansion of the Letter Avant-Garde Art and Language After Mallarmé
By Trevor Stark

2020, English
Hardcover, 440 pages, 17.8 x 22.9 cm
Published by The MIT Press / Massachusetts October Books / New York

$89.00 - In stock -

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How cubism and Dada radically reimagined the social nature of language, following the utopian poetic vision of Stéphane Mallarmé.

At the outset of the twentieth century, language became a visual medium and a philosophical problem for European avant-garde artists. In Total Expansion of the Letter, art historian Trevor Stark offers a provocative history of this “linguistic turn,” centered on the radical doubt about the social function of language that defined the avant-garde movements. Major cubists and Dadaists—including Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and Tristan Tzara—appropriated bureaucratic paperwork, newspapers, popular songs, and advertisements, only to render them dysfunctional and incommunicative. In doing so, Stark argues, these figures contended with the utopian vision of the late nineteenth-century poet Stéphane Mallarmé, who promised a “total expansion of the letter.”

In his poems, Mallarmé claimed, “the act of writing was scrutinized down to its origins.” This scrutiny, however, delivered his work into an indeterminate zone between mediums, social practices, and temporalities—a paradox that reverberates through Stark's wide-ranging case studies in the history of the avant-garde. Stark examines Picasso's nearly abstract works of 1910, which promised to unite painting and writing at the brink of illegibility; the cubists' “hope of an anonymous art,” expressed in newspaper collages and industrial colors; the collaborative, cacophonous invention of “simultaneous poems” by the Dadaists in Zurich during World War I; and Duchamp's artistic exploration of chance in gambling and finance. Each of these cases reflected the avant-garde's transformative encounter with the premise of Mallarmé's poetics: that language—the very medium of human communication and community—is perpetually in flux and haunted by emptiness.

As certain artists experimenting in the postwar orbit of John Cage well knew, it was not he who introduced the conceptual scope of chance and musical metric into the language of art. In his brilliant book on Mallarmé's legacy—sure to correct the record—Trevor Stark positions the Coup de Dés as the first score of the twentieth century. Inhabiting industrialism's destruction of the subject, and an infinite abstraction—as chance gave way to indeterminism—Mallarmé encoded his best-known poem with score-like traits (time/realization) and ambiguity (language's readymade indeterminacy); thus he cast the death of the author like a bottle thrown at sea. Such stakes are clear because Stark makes them so. With not a word or a sentence wasted, he adroitly guides us through the Mallarméan dimensions of three pivotal experiments: Braque and Picasso's introduction of text into pictorial space (1910/1912); the temporal-auditory collage of Tzara's simultaneous poems honed in the collectivism of Zurich Dada; and Duchamp's ultimate transvaluation of art/work in Monte Carlo. The often-startling fruits of Stark's meticulous research are presented with a light touch, a space for realization; yet we sense the intellectual and “intermedial” virtuosity the author brings to the task—handling, deciphering, hearing, seeing, translating, across disciplines, languages, and time(s)—to convey his cases and insights to 21st-century readers with the force of contemporaneity. — Julia E. Robinson, Associate Professor in the Department of Art History at New York University; curator of the exhibition John Cage & Experimental Art: The Anarchy of Silence

File under: John Cage Marcel Broodthaers Pablo Picasso Tristan Tzara Marcel Duchamp Paul Cezanne Georges Braque Francis Picabia Hugo Ball F.T. Marinetti Trevor Stark Stéphane Mallarmé Tristan Tzara Martin Heidegger Theodor W. Adorno Maurice Blanchot Edmund Husserl Maurice Merleau-Ponty The MIT Press / Massachusetts October Books / New York Art Performance / Dance / Theater Fiction / Poetry Dada Fluxus

BLOCK 15
10th Anniversary Issue, SPRING 1989

1989, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 68 pages, 29 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Middlesex Polytechnic / UK

$65.00 - In stock -

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Block magazine was founded in 1979 by a small group of lecturers at Middlesex Polytechnic and ran for eleven years. Block was a hugely influential journal in the developing fields of Visual and Cultural Studies. Edited by Jon Bird, Barry Curtis, Melinda Mash, Tim Putnam, George Robertson and Lisa Tickner, Block “attempted to address the problem of the social, economic and ideological dimensions of the arts in society, and offered a challenge to a conventional understanding of art history.” Block featured important conceptual artists and contemporary cultural theorists including Terry Atkinson, Lucy Lippard, Mary Kelly, Art & Language, Allen Jones, John Berger, Susan Hiller, Martha Rosler, Paul Virilio, Jean Baudrillard, Conrad Atkinson, Terry Smith, amongst others. Despite the small scale of its operation, the magazine had a wide distribution in art colleges and was avidly read by lecturers looking for ways to incorporate new theoretical, often Marxist, anarchist, feminist, situationist, poststructuralist, perspectives into their teaching.

This "Retrospective and Prospective" 10th anniversary issue features Patrick Wright, Dick Hebdige, Griselda Pollock, Judith Williamson, Jean Baudrillard, Adrian Rifkin, Jonathan Harris, Olivier Richon, Adorno, Barthes, Benjamin, and many more.

Very Good copy, light wear/age.

File under: Patrick Wright Dick Hebdige Griselda Pollock Judith Williamson Jean Baudrillard Adrian Rifkin Jonathan Harris Olivier Richon Theodor W. Adorno Roland Barthes Walter Benjamin Middlesex Polytechnic / UK Periodicals Out-of-print / Rare Philosophy Psychoanalysis Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Theory / Essay Art Sociology / Politics

German Essays on Music: Adorno, Bloch, Mann, and others
Edited by Jost Hermand and Michael Gilbert

1994, English
Softcover, 308 pages, 21 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by Continuum / London

$40.00 - In stock -

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First 1994 edition.

Up to the end of the nineteenth century, Germany largely perceived itself as "the nation of poets and philosophers." But with the enormous popularity of Schubert and Wagner, this began to change. Suddenly, composers also began to play a greater role in theories of national identity, and music theory became and important element of German thought. The essays in this volume reflect this, and are by a range of writers: Adorno, Bloch, Thomas Mann, Wachenroder, Herder, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Hegel, Bettina von Arnim, Nietzsche, Max Weber, Brecht, Arthur Schopenhauer, Immanuel Kant, Christian Gottlieb Ludwig, Karl Wilhelm Ramler, Arnold Schering, Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, Johann Georg Sulzer, and others.

Fine—As New.

File under: Theodor W. Adorno G. W. F. Hegel Ernst Bloch E. T. A. Hoffmann Thomas Mann Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder Johann Gottfried Herder Bettina von Arnim Max Weber Brecht Arthur Schopenhauer Immanuel Kant Christian Gottlieb Ludwig Karl Wilhelm Ramler Arnold Schering Bertolt Brecht Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart Johann Georg Sulzer Continuum / London Sound / Music Performance / Dance / Theater Out-of-print / Rare Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Theory / Essay Philosophy

The Fate of Art: Aesthetic Alienation from Kant to Derrida and Adorno
by J. M. Bernstein

1992, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket),‎ 292 pages, 23.5 x 15.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by Penn State University / Pennsylvania

$70.00 - In stock -

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First hardcover 1992 edition.

“Bernstein’s rich and provocative study examines the essentially modern attempt to distinguish a unique or autonomous realm of the aesthetic, and presents an ambitious argument designed to undermine that post-Kantian insistence on a categorical distinction among the beautiful, the true, and the good. In doing so, he offers a thoughtful account of why the fate of art has been so central to those thinkers in the European tradition worried about the implications of the European Enlightenment, and he presents a number of original, critical readings of individual thinkers. This is an important, very interesting book.”—Robert B. Pippen, University of Chicago

Aesthetic alienation may be described as the paradoxical relationship whereby art and truth have come to be divorced from one another while nonetheless remaining entwined. J. M. Bernstein not only finds the separation of art and truth problematic, but also contends that we continue to experience art as sensuous and particular, thus complicating and challenging the cultural self-understanding of modernity.
Bernstein focuses on the work of four key philosophers—Kant, Heidegger, Derrida, and Adorno—and provides powerful new interpretations of their views. Bernstein shows how each of the three post-Kantian aesthetics (its concepts of judgment, genius, and the sublime) to construct a philosophical language that can criticize and displace the categorical assumption of modernity. He also examines in detail their responses to questions concerning the relations among art, philosophy, and politics in modern societies.

Near Fine copy in Near Fine dust jacket.

File under: Jacques Derrida Martin Heidegger Immanuel Kant Theodor W. Adorno J. M. Bernstein Penn State University / Pennsylvania Theory / Essay Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Out-of-print / Rare Philosophy

The Melancholy Science: An Introduction to the Thought of Theodor W. Adorno
by Gillian Rose

1978, English
Softcover, 224 pages, 24 x 15.3 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Palgrave Macmillan / UK

$45.00 - In stock -

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First 1978 Palgrave edition.

Gillian Rose here discusses Adorno's contributions to Marxism, to philosophy, to sociology and to aesthetics. She shows that his writings constitute a unity although they are composed of fragments, and argues that he has turned Marxism into a search for style.

The attempts of Adorno, Lukács and Benjamin to develop a Marxist theory of culture centred on the concept of reification are contrasted and the ways in which the concept of reification has come to be misused are exposed. Adorno's continuation for his own time of the Marxist critique of philosophy is traced through his writings on Hegel, Kierkegaard, Husserl and Heidegger. His opposition to the separation of philosophy and sociology is shown by examination of his critique of Durkheim and Weber, and of his contributions to the dispute over positivism, his critique of empirical social research and his own empirical sociology.

Gillian Rose shows Adorno's most important contribution to be his founding of a Marxist aesthetic which offers a sociology of culture. In literature she demonstrates this by discussion of his essays on Kafka, Mann, Beckett and Brecht, and in music by discussion of his writings on Schönberg. Finally, Adorno's 'Melancholy Science' is shown to offer a 'sociology of illusion' which rivals both structural Marxism and phenomenological sociology as well as the subsequent work of the Frankfurt School.

Gillian Rose is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Sussex.

VG copy, light wear, previous owner's name to top title page.

File under: Theodor W. Adorno Franz Kafka Bertolt Brecht Samuel Beckett G. W. F. Hegel Edmund Husserl Martin Heidegger Søren Kierkegaard Gillian Rose Palgrave Macmillan / UK Theory / Essay Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Philosophy Sociology / Politics Out-of-print / Rare Socialism / Communism / Capitalism Art

Critical Models — Interventions & Catchwords
by Theodor W. Adorno

1999, English
Softcover, 418 pages, ‎23 x 15.4 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Columbia University Press / New York

$60.00 - In stock -

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First 1999 edition.
THIS AWARD-WINNING BOOK combines two Adorno collections in a single volume-Interventions: Nine Critical Models (1963) and Catchwords: Critical Models II (1969). Both are passionate examples of his postwar commitment to unmasking the culture that engendered Nazism and its antihumanist nightmare.

"An ably translated and meticulously documented collection of essays that offers a view of Adorno in his role as public intellectual. Adorno's essays are truly urgent. His writing continues, as he once wrote, to protect us 'from the chatter of culture and the abracadabra of worldviews."—The Nation

"One purpose in publishing Critical Models is to introduce a more accessible Adorno to the public.... In an age of cynicism and practicality, he is more essential than ever."—Los Angeles Times Book Review

"It is great news that this superb collection of Adorno's polemical, political, and thoroughly con- temporary interventions on television, teaching, nationalism, his years as an exiled scholar in the United States, and much more is finally available in a rigorous, very readable, and in every way exemplary translation."—Thomas Levin, Princeton University

"Contrary to the caricature of Adorno as an aloof mandarin unwilling to descend into the pub- lic sphere, these essays, elegantly translated and abundantly annotated by Henry Pickford, reveal the range and power of his contributions to the fragile German democracy he helped build after returning from exile. Without sacrificing his critical rigor, Adorno shows that even the most neg- ative of dialectics can address practical problems and provide suggestive answers."—Martin Jay, University of California at Berkeley

"Critical Models presents Adorno at his most philosophically stunning-'Progress' and 'On Subject and Object' are among his finest essays and at his topical best. Even an Adorno radio talk can be critically chilling. This volume is the ideal entry into the expanse of Adorno's thought."—Jay Bernstein, Vanderbilt University

THEODOR W. ADORNO (1903-1969), known for his writings on philosophy, sociology, aesthetics, lit- erature, mass culture, and music, is the author of such seminal works as Aesthetic Theory, The Jargon of Authenticity, and with Max Horkheimer, The Dialectics of Enlightenment.

HENRY W. PICKFORD received a Ph.D. in comparative literature and philosophy from Yale University and has published articles on Adorno, Benjamin, Celan, and Mandelshtam.

Very Good copy.

File under: Theodor W. Adorno Columbia University Press / New York Philosophy Theory / Essay Out-of-print / Rare

Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life
by Theodor Adorno

1985, English
Softcover, 252 pages, 20.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Verso / London

$45.00 - In stock -

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A classic of twentieth-century thought, Minima Moralia is Adorno's literary and philosophical masterpiece of aphorisms and short prose meditations. 1985 Edition, 1994 printing.

Written between 1944 and 1947, Minima Moralia is a collection of rich, lucid aphorisms and essays about life in modern capitalist society. Adorno casts his penetrating eye across society in mid-century America and finds a life deformed by capitalism. This is Adorno's theoretical and literary masterpiece and a classic of twentieth-century thought.

A volume of Adorno is equivalent to a whole shelf of books on literature.—Susan Sontag
The best thoughts of a noble and invigorating mind.

Very Good copy with some wear to cover edges.

File under: Theodor W. Adorno Verso / London Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Theory / Essay

Broken Music

1989, English / German / French
Softcover (w. flexi-disc), 280 pages, 26 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Daadgalerie / Berlin Gelbe Musik / Berlin

$280.00 - In stock -

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Rare first 1989 edition of Broken Music, an essential compendium for records created by visual artists. Complete with original flexi-disc. The publication was edited by Ursula Block and Michael Glasmeier and published in 1989 by DAAD and Gelbe Musik, Berlin. Broken Music focuses on recordings, record-objects, artwork for records, and record installations made by thousands of artists between WWII and 1989.

It also includes essays by both editors as well as Theodor W. Adorno, René Block, Jean Dubuffet, Milan Knizak, László Moholy-Nagy, Christiane Seiffert, and Hans Rudolf Zeller, as well as a flexi disc of the Arditti Quartet performing Knizak’s “Broken Music.” The centerpiece of the publication is a nearly 200-page bibliography of artists’ records.

Works chosen for the publication revolved around four criteria: (1) record covers created as original work by visual artists; (2) record or sound-producing objects (multiples/editions/sculptures); (3) books and publications that contain a record or recorded-media object; and (4) records or recorded media that have sound by visual artists.

Artists documented in the volume include Vito Acconci, albrecht/d., Laurie Anderson, Guillaume Apollinaire, Karel Appel, Arman, Hans Arp, Antonin Artaud, John Baldessari, Hugo Ball, Claus van Bebber, John Bender, Harry Bertoia, Jean-Pierre Bertrand, Joseph Beuys, Mel Bochner, Claus Böhmler, Christian Boltanski, KP Brehmer, William Burroughs, John Cage, Henri Chopin, Henning Christiansen, Jean Cocteau, William Copley, Philip Corner, Merce Cunningham, Hanne Darboven, Jim Dine, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Fischli and Weiss, R. Buckminster Fuller, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Glass, Jack Goldstein, Peter Gordon, Hans Haacke, Richard Hamilton, Bernard Heidsieck, Holger Hiller, Richard Huelsenbeck, Isidore Isou, Marcel Janco, Servie Janssen, Jasper Johns, Joe Jones, Thomas Kapielski, Allan Kaprow, Martin Kippenberger, Per Kirkeby, Cheri Knight, Milan Knizak, Richard Kriesche, Christina Kubisch, Laibach, John Lennon, Sol Lewitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Annea Lockwood, Paul McCarthy, Meredith Monk, Josef Felix Müller, Piotr Nathan, Hermann Nitsch, Albert Oehlen, Frank O’Hara, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Dennis Oppenheim, Nam June Paik, Charlemagne Palestine, A.R. Penck, Tom Phillips, Robert Rauschenberg, The Red Crayola, Ursula Reuter Christiansen, Gerhard Richter, Jim Rosenquist, Dieter Roth, Gerhard Rühm, Robert Rutman, Sarkis, Thomas Schmit, Conrad Schnitzler, Kurt Schwitters, Selten Gehörte Musik, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, Keith Sonnier, Strafe für Rebellion, Jean Tinguely, Moniek Toebosch, Tristan Tzara, Ben Vautier, Yoshi Wada, Emmett Walsh, Andy Warhol, William Wegman, and Lawrence Weiner.

Ursula Block is a curator living in Berlin, Germany. From 1981 until 2014, she ran gelbe Musik, a gallery and record shop in Berlin that featured work by artists at the crossroads between music and art. She was married to curator René Block.

Michael Glasmeier is a professor, writer, and editor living in Berlin, Germany. Since the early 1980s, he has curated dozens of shows that explore the intersection between the visual arts, music, film, and language.

Very Good copy all-round, light cover/corner wear.

File under: ×Vito Acconci albrecht/d. Laurie Anderson Karel Appel Arman Antonin Artaud John Baldessari Hugo Ball Claus van Bebber John Bender Harry Bertoia Jean-Pierre Bertrand Joseph Beuys Mel Bochner Claus Böhmler Christian Boltanski John Cage Henri Chopin Henning Christiansen Jean Cocteau William Copley Philip Corner Merce Cunningham Hanne Darboven Jim Dine Marcel Duchamp Max Ernst Lawrence Ferlinghetti Buckminster Fuller Fischli & Weiss Peter Fischli Peter Fischli & David Weiss David Weiss Allen Ginsberg Philip Glass Jack Goldstein Peter Gordon Hans Haacke Richard Hamilton Bernard Heidsieck Holger Hiller Richard Huelsenbeck Isidore Isou Marcel Janco Servie Janssen Jasper Johns Joe Jones Thomas Kapielski Allan Kaprow Martin Kippenberger Per Kirkeby Cheri Knight Milan Knizak Richard Kriesche Christina Kubisch Laibach John Lennon Sol Lewitt Roy Lichtenstein Annea Lockwood Paul McCarthy Meredith Monk Josef Felix Müller Piotr Nathan Hermann Nitsch Albert Oehlen Frank O’Hara Claes Oldenburg Yoko Ono Dennis Oppenheim Nam June Paik Charlemagne Palestine A.R. Penck Tom Phillips Robert Rauschenberg The Red Crayola Ursula Reuter Christiansen Gerhard Richter Jim Rosenquist Dieter Roth Gerhard Rühm Robert Rutman Sarkis Thomas Schmit Conrad Schnitzler Kurt Schwitters Selten Gehörte Musik Richard Serra Robert Smithson Michael Snow Keith Sonnier Strafe für Rebellion Jean Tinguely Moniek Toebosch Tristan Tzara Ben Vautier Yoshi Wada Emmett Walsh Andy Warhol William Wegman Lawrence Weiner Jean Arp (Hans Arp) K. P. Brehmer William S. Burroughs Theodor W. Adorno René Block Jean Dubuffet Milan Knizak László Moholy-Nagy Christiane Seiffert Hans Rudolf Zeller Ursula Block Michael Glasmeier Daadgalerie / Berlin Gelbe Musik / Berlin Art Conceptual Art Performance / Dance / Theater Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Counterculture Out-of-print / Rare Group Shows / Collections Curatorial Theory / Essay Fluxus Arte Povera Pop Art Sound / Music Dada Minimal Art Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic Bauhaus Objects / Ephemera / A/V

The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture
by Theodor W. Adorno

1991, English
Softcover, 224 pages, 21.5 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by Routledge / London

$30.00 - In stock -

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First 1991 English Routledge edition.

The creation of the Frankfurt School of critical theory in the 1920s saw the birth of some of the most exciting and challenging writings of the twentieth century. It is out of this background that the great critic Theodor Adorno emerged. His finest essays are collected here, offering the reader unparalleled insights into Adorno's thoughts on culture. He argued that the culture industry commodified and standardized all art. In turn this suffocated individuality and destroyed critical thinking. At the time, Adorno was accused of everything from overreaction to deranged hysteria by his many detractors. In today's world, where even the least cynical of consumers is aware of the influence of the media, Adorno's work takes on a more immediate significance. The Culture Industry is an unrivalled indictment of the banality of mass culture.

Very Good—Near Fine copy.

File under: Theodor W. Adorno J. M. Bernstein Routledge / London Philosophy Theory / Essay Out-of-print / Rare Sociology / Politics Art

The Jargon of Authenticity
by Theodor W. Adorno

1986, English
Softcover, 165 pages, 20 x 13 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Routledge & Kegan Paul / London

$45.00 - In stock -

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Scarce first 1986 Routledge English paperback edition.

Theodor Adorno was no stranger to controversy. In The Jargon of Authenticity he gives full expression to his hostility to the language employed by certain existentialist thinkers such as Martin Heidegger. With his customary alertness to the uses and abuses of language, he calls into question the jargon, or 'aura', as his colleague Walter Benjamin described it, which clouded existentialists' thought. He argued that its use undermined the very message for meaning and liberation that it sought to make authentic. Moreover, such language - claiming to address the issue of freedom - signally failed to reveal the lack of freedom inherent in the capitalist context in which it was written. Instead, along with the jargon of the advertising jingle, it attributed value to the satisfaction of immediate desire. Alerting his readers to the connection between ideology and language, Adorno's frank and open challenge to directness, and the avoidance of language that 'gives itself over either to the market, to balderdash, or to the predominating vulgarity', is as timely today as it ever has been.

Very Good copy, page edge tanning.

File under: Theodor W. Adorno Routledge & Kegan Paul / London Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language

Mahler: A Musical Physiognomy
by Theodor W. Adorno

1992, English
Softcover, 180 pages, 21 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by University of Chicago Press / Chicago

$35.00 - In stock -

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First 1992 University of Chicago English edition.

"A masterpiece.... This is tremendous stuff, well translated and urgently to be recommended."—Peter Franklin, Musical Times

Theodor W. Adorno goes beyond conventional thematic analysis to gain a more complete understanding of Mahler's music through his character, his social and philosophical back-ground, and his moment in musical history. Adorno examines the composer's works as a continuous and unified development that began with his childhood response to the marches and folk tunes of his native Bohemia. Since its appearance in 1960 in German, Mahler has established itself as a classic of musical interpretation. Now available in English, the work is presented here in a translation that captures the stylistic brilliance of the original.

"Consistently wonderful.... No one who is fascinated by Mahler's music, perhaps even more no one who finds it insuffer-able, can afford to ignore this book." —Michael Tanner, Times Literary Supplement

"Penetrates to the very bone and marrow of Mahler's entire output."—Harold Blumenfeld, Musical Quarterly

"A major work in the Adorno canon: it is grandly conceived and fully realized on every level."—Stephen Miles, Notes

Theodor W. Adorno (1903-69), one of the foremost members of the Frankfurt school of critical theory, studied with Alban Berg in Vienna during the late twenties, and was later the director of the Institute of Social Research at the University of Frankfurt from 1956 until his death. His works include Aesthetic Theory, Introduction to the Sociology of Music, The Jargon of Authenticity, Prism, and Philosophy of Modern Music.

Very Good—Near Fine copy.

File under: Gustav Mahler Theodor W. Adorno University of Chicago Press / Chicago Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Sound / Music Art

MUSEUM, GALLERY AND CULTURAL ARCHITECTURE IN AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND AND THE PACIFIC REGION : Essays in Antipodean Identity
by Michael J. Ostwald & Steven Fleming

2007, English
Hardcover (clothbound), 220 pages, 23.5 x 16 cm
Special private edition,
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by The Edwin Mellen Press / Wales

$140.00 - In stock -

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Special private issue edition of this seldom seen hardcover collection of academic essays in antipodean identity through architecture, edited by Michael J. Ostwald & Steven Fleming, awarded the Adele Mellen Prize for Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship. Preface by architect Lindsay Johnston. Texts by Stephen Frith, Philip Goad, Harriet Edquist, Michael Linzey, William Taylor, Ali Mozaffari, Naomi Stead, Mike Austin, Davina Jackson, Michael J. Ostwald and Steven Fleming.

In the years since the completion of Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House countries throughout the South Pacific have displayed a particular fascination with the possibility that architecture may be able to embody regional cultural identity. This book examines a number of major museums, art galleries and cultural centers that have been constructed in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific regions. The majority of these buildings, landscapes or structures have been completed in the last few years and all have employed different architectural strategies to shape their designs. This collection of nine critical essays by leading scholars of contemporary architecture provides an important survey and assessment of Antipodean cultural architecture. Emphasizing common traits, the introduction to the text asks how this phenomenon might be understood and why it may be relevant in different regions around the world. Acknowledging the pluralistic nature of Antipodean architecture, the conclusion offers an alternative hermeneutical framework, one that accepts the fragmentary nature of the contemporary cultural landscape.

“There is, in fact, a hint of mild amusement amongst the architects of the Antipodes that the world has discovered that their other [hemisphere] is so interesting. There is a reassurance that maybe the real truth is being ‘dug with the other foot’. Irish poet Seamus Heaney speaks of his writing as “digging with the pen” and the essays that follow are turning over the sods of the cultural soil of Antipodean architecture in a way that may reveal new comprehensions, comprehensions beyond the scale of the domestic.”—Professor Lindsay Johnston, Head of the School of Architecture and Planning, The University of Auckland

“The depth and breadth of the authors’ writings reflects the multi-valence of a region that defies generalization. Through their attention to buildings and their attendant theoretical concerns, each author opens our eyes to another facet of this vast region of the world, revealing more of its rich cultural and intellectual heritage as the volume unfolds.”—Dr. Mark A. Reynolds, Instructor in Geometry, Academy of Art University

“This book, edited by Michael J. Ostwald and Steven Fleming, is a much-needed and engaging collection of essays from a group of pre-eminent Australasian architectural writers and thinkers ... The volume deals with museums, cultural centers, gardens, art galleries and public space and as such it is likely to be of interest to not only architects, urban designers and architectural teachers and students but also to art historians, cultural theorists and those engaged in museum practice.”—Dr. Sarah Treadwell, Deputy Head of School, University of Auckland

Dr. Michael J. Ostwald is Professor of Architectural Analytics at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney (Australia) where he was previously Associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture and in the Faculty of the Built Environment.

As New, light cloth wear.

File under: Lindsay Johnston Roy Grounds Mario Bellini Walter Burley Griffin Charles Jencks Gregory Burgess Jasmax Peter Eisenman Renzo Piano Frank Gehry Wood Marsh Ashton Raggatt McDougall Jørn Utzon Philip Goad Michael J. Ostwald Steven Fleming Lindsay Johnston Jacques Derrida Theodor W. Adorno Paul Carter Harriet Edquist Stephen Frith Philip Goad Michael Linzey William Taylor Ali Mozaffari Naomi Stead Mike Austin Davina Jackson The Edwin Mellen Press / Wales Theory / Essay Out-of-print / Rare Architecture / Interior Italian Radical Design / Postmodernism

In Search of Wagner
by Theodor Adorno

1985, English
Softcover, 160 pages, 13.97 x 21.59 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Verso / London

$30.00 - In stock -

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Written in exile from Germany, this potent study of Europe’s most controversial composer explodes the frontiers of musical and cultural analysis.

Richard Wagner's works are among the most controversial in the history of European music — aesthetically, for their ideal of Gesamtkunstwerk, which inspired such productions as the Ring cycle; and in wider terms, because of their ultimate assimilation into the official culture of the Third Reich. The aesthetic and the ideological and political are subtly interwoven throughout In Search of Wagner.

Adorno, who studied under Alban Berg in Vienna and went on to become the most brilliant exponent of the Frankfurt School of German Marxism, was in many ways the cultural antitype of his subject. In his concise synoptic account, he provides deft musicological analyses of Wagner's scores, of his compositional techniques, orchestration and staging methods, quoting copiously from the music dramas themselves. At the same time, he sets down incisive reflections on Wagner's social character, and on the ideological impulses of his artistic activity.

"Adorno's In Search of Wagner is an astonishing book, comparable only... to the later Wagner tracts by Nietzsche... It is essential reading for anyone seriously involved with the composer, and now we can read it thanks to a superior translation by Rodney Livingstone"—New York Review of Books

"Every chapter of this excellent little book has some penetrating insight"—Classical Music Weekly

VG copy.

File under: Richard Wagner Rodney Livingstone Theodor W. Adorno Verso / London Sound / Music Out-of-print / Rare Philosophy Sociology / Politics Theory / Essay

Prisms
by Theodor W. Adorno

1983, English
Softcover, 27 pages, 22 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by The MIT Press / Massachusetts

$48.00 - In stock -

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Prisms, essays in cultural criticism and society, is the work of a critic and scholar who has had a marked influence on contemporary American and German thought. It displays the unusual combination of intellectual depth, scope, and philosophical rigor that Adorno was able to bring to his subjects, whether he was writing about astrology columns in Los Angeles newspapers, the special problems of German academics immigrating to the United States during the Nazi years, or Hegel's influence on Marx.

In these essays, Adorno explores a variety of topics, ranging from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Kafka's The Castle to Jazz, Bach, Schoenberg, Proust, Veblen's theory of conspicuous consumption, museums, Spengler, and more. His writing throughout is knowledgeable, witty, and at times archly opinionated, but revealing a sensitivity to the political, cultural, economic, and aesthetic connections that lie beneath the surfaces of everyday life.

Prisms is included in the series, Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.

Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) was a student of philosophy, musicology, psychology, and sociology at Frankfurt where he later became Professor of Philosophy and Sociology and Co-Director of the Frankfurt School. During the war years he lived in Oxford, in New York, and in Los Angeles, continuing to produce numerous books on music, literature, and culture.

Shierry Weber Nicholsen teaches environmental philosophy and psychology in Antioch University Seattle's M.A. Program on Environment and Community and is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice in Seattle. She has translated several works by Theodor Adorno and Jürgen Habermas.

Very Good copy.

File under: Theodor W. Adorno The MIT Press / Massachusetts Philosophy Sound / Music Art Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Theory / Essay Out-of-print / Rare Sociology / Politics

Adorno : Disenchantment and Ethics
by J. M. Bernstein

2001, English
Softcover, 480 pages, 15.24 x 22.86 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Cambridge University Press / Cambridge

$55.00 - In stock -

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First 2001 edition of this book providing the first account in any language of the ethical theory latent in Adorno's writings.

Theodor W. Adorno is best known for his contributions to aesthetics and social theory. Critics have always complained about the lack of a practical, political or ethical dimension to Adorno's philosophy. In this highly original contribution to the literature on Adorno, J. M. Bernstein offers the first attempt in any language to provide an account of the ethical theory latent in Adorno's writings. Bernstein relates Adorno's ethics to major trends in contemporary moral philosophy. He analyses the full range of Adorno's major works, with a special focus on Dialectic of Enlightenment, Minima Moralia and Negative Dialectics. In developing his account Bernstein lays particular stress on Adorno's contention that the event of Auschwitz demands a new categorical imperative. This book will be widely acknowledged as the standard work on Adorno's ethics and as such will interest professionals and students of philosophy, political theory, sociology, history of ideas, art history and music.

"This is a marvelous book, balancing a commitment to hermeneutic explication with a desire to make Adorno relevant to contemporary thought in the widest possible sense."—Choice

"Bernstein's study of Adorno may mark a watershed in the reception of Adorno in the Anglo-american philosophical community... This is a marvelous book, balancing a commitment to hermeneutic explication with a desire to make Adorno relevant to contemporary thought in the widest possible sense. Highly recommended for general readers and upper-division undergraduates through professionals."—Choice

Very Good copy, some wear.

File under: Theodor W. Adorno J. M. Bernstein Cambridge University Press / Cambridge Philosophy Theory / Essay Out-of-print / Rare

Diacritics: A Review of Contemporary Criticism Winter 1993
Vol. 23, No. 4

1993, English
Softcover, 106 pages, 25 x 17.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by John Hopkins University Press / Baltimore

$25.00 - In stock -

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Winter 1993 issue of philosophy journal Diacritics, Vol. 23, No. 4, published by John Hopkins University, Baltimore. Contents includes: Judith Butler — Poststructuralism and Postmarxism, Robert Baker — Crossings of Levinas, Derrida, and Adorno: Horizons of Nonviolence, Rei Terada — The New Aestheticism, Sylvere Lotringer — Phantoms of the Opera (Michel Leiris), Marc Blanchard — Between Autobiography and Ethnography: The Journalist as Anthropologist (Michel Leiris), Patrick Colm Hogan — The Limits of Semiotics (Umberto Eco), and much more...

Founded in 1971 at Johns Hopkins University (later moving to Cornell), Diacritics is a journal focused on critical theory and contemporary continental philosophy — one of the major organs of “high theory,” especially as derived from French philosophy of language (Deleuze, Nancy, Derrida, and Badiou).

Good copy but with ex-libris stamps and wear.

File under: Michel Leiris SylveÌre Lotringer Emmanuel Levinas Jacques Derrida Theodor W. Adorno Drucilla Cornell Paul de Man John Hopkins University Press / Baltimore Theory / Essay Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals

Mimesis : Culture - Art - Society
by Gunter Gebauer and Christoph Wulf

1996, English
Softcover, 400 pages, 22.89 x 15.3 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by University of California / Berkeley

$25.00 - Out of stock

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Mimesis, the notion that art imitates reality, has long been recognized as one of the central ideas of Western aesthetics and has been most frequently associated with Aristotle. Less well documented is the great importance of mimetic theories of literature, theater, and the visual arts during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In this book, the most comprehensive overview of the theory of mimesis since Auerbach's monumental study, Gunter Gebauer and Christoph Wulf provide a thorough introduction to the complex and shifting meanings of the term. Beginning with the Platonic doctrine of imitation, they chart the concept's appropriation and significance in the aesthetic theories of Aristotle, Molière, Shakespeare, Racine, Diderot, Lessing, and Rousseau. They examine the status of mimesis in the nineteenth-century novel and its reworking by such modern thinkers as Benjamin, Adorno, and Derrida. Widening the traditional understanding of mimesis to encompass the body and cultural practices of everyday life, their work suggests the continuing value of mimetic theory and will prove essential reading for scholars and students of literature, theater, and the visual arts.

Gunter Gebauer and Christoph Wulf are Professors in the Center for Historical Anthropology at the Free University of Berlin and the authors of several works of literary and cultural criticism. Don Reneau is a translator and writer in Berkeley, California.

Very Good copy.

File under: Jacques Derrida G. S. Rousseau Denis Diderot Aristotle Theodor W. Adorno Walter Benjamin Gunter Gebauer Christoph Wulf University of California / Berkeley Philosophy Sociology / Politics Theory / Essay Art Out-of-print / Rare

Memory Of Thought : An Essay on Heidegger and Adorno
by Alexander García Düttmann

2002, English
Softcover, 350 pages, 21.5 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good

$30.00 - Out of stock

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A reconstruction of aspects of the philosophy of Adorno and Heidegger. This title reconstructs the philosophy of Adorno and Heidegger in the light of the importance that these thinkers attach to two proper names: Auschwitz and Germanien. In Adorno's dialectical thinking, Auschwitz is the name of an incommensurable historical event that seems to put a provisional end to history as a negative totality. In Heidegger's thinking of Being, Germanien is a name inscribed in an historical mission on which the fate of Western civilization seems to depend: it thus becomes the name of a positive totality of history.

Alexander García Düttmann (b. 1961) studied Philosophy in Frankfurt as a student of Alfred Schmidt and in Paris as a student of Jacques Derrida.

Very Good copy, first edition.

File under: Theodor W. Adorno Martin Heidegger Alexander García Düttmann Theory / Essay Philosophy Out-of-print / Rare

Kierkegaard : Construction of the Aesthetic
by Theodor W. Adorno

1989, English
Softcover, 200 pages, 15.2 x 22.9 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by University of Minnesota Press / Minnesota

$40.00 - In stock -

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Construction of the Aesthetic intends to recuperate the sphere of the aesthetic from the dialectic of existence: 'not to forget in dreams the present world, but to change it by the strength of an image.' Editorial Reviews Philosopher, sociologist, and musicologist, Adorno (1903-1969) published this as his first major work in 1933. By then he had been studying Kierkegaard for nearly 20 years and would continue to refer to the life and work of the 19th-century Dane throughout his own intellectual career. For Kierkegaard, the aesthetic is the first of three stages in one's interior development, and Adorno concerns himself with revealing the not-always-conscious course by which Kierkegaard came to this formulation. While of importance to scholars of existentialism, intellectual history, and Adorno, this book is not for lay readers.—Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley P.L., Cal.

Theodor W. Adorno (1903—1969) was a German philosopher, sociologist, psychologist, musicologist, and composer. He was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, whose work has come to be associated with thinkers such as Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, Erich Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse, for whom the works of Freud, Marx, and Hegel were essential to a critique of modern society. As a critic of both fascism and what he called the culture industry, his writings—such as Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), Minima Moralia (1951) and Negative Dialectics (1966)—strongly influenced the European New Left.

As New copy, first edition, 1989.

File under: Theodor W. Adorno Søren Kierkegaard University of Minnesota Press / Minnesota Philosophy Theory / Essay Sociology / Politics

Essays on Music
by Theodor W. Adorno

2002, English
Softcover, 760 pages, 15.2 x 22.9 cm
Published by University of California Press / Berkley

$60.00 - Out of stock

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Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969), one of the principal figures associated with the Frankfurt School, wrote extensively on culture, modernity, aesthetics, literature, and - more than any other subject - music. To this day, Adorno remains the single most influential contributor to the development of qualitative musical sociology which, together with his nuanced intertextual readings of musical works, gives him broad claim as a continuing force in the study of music. This long-awaited collection of twenty-seven essays represents the full range of Adorno's music writing. Nearly half of the essays appear in English for the first time; all of the essays are fully annotated; and, the previously translated essays have been corrected and missing text restored, making this volume the definitive resource on Adorno's musical thought.

File under: Theodor W. Adorno University of California Press / Berkley Sociology / Politics Sound / Music Theory / Essay Philosophy