Adorno: A Critical Reader presents a collection of new essays by many of the world's top critics, who examine Adorno's lasting impact on the arts, politics, history, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and sociology. Few intellectuals captured as much critical attention in the late twentieth century as Theodor W. Adorno. A growing number of his writings, lectures, and addresses have recently become available in English, a development that has inspired a reassessment of his oeuvre and placed Adorno at the center of debates about the role and responsibilities of the intellectual. Readers interested in the origins of cultural studies and critical theory will find this book an important examination of the broad work of one of the major intellectuals of the twentieth century. Those interested in the arts, politics, history, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and sociology will delight in this important collection of essays that re-evaluate Adorno's work in the context of the many fields that his writings have shaped irreversibly.
"There is a kind of poetic justice in the fact that Adorno is thegreat survivor of the Frankfurt School, the only one whose thoughtretained its full actuality. However, the same thing he said forpsychoanalysis - that its truth resides in its veryexaggerations - goes for his own thought: he is at his mostsubversive when he gets involved in a deadlock. For this reason,this critical reader, focused on these deadlocks, is not just acommentary on his thought, but literally part of it. Inshort, this book is simply a must!" Slavoj Zizek,Kulturwissenschaftliches Institute, Essen
"Against all odds, Adorno has emerged at the dawn of thetwenty-first century as arguably the leading theoreticalinspiration of our time. These stimulating essays, written by freshas well as familiar commentators on his oeuvre, go a long waytowards explaining the power of his ideas and demonstrating theirabiding relevance." Martin Jay, University of California,Berkeley
"Against all odds, Adorno has emerged at the dawn of thetwenty-first century as arguably the leading theoreticalinspiration of our time. These stimulating essays, written by freshas well as familiar commentators on his oeuvre, go a long waytowards explaining the power of his ideas and demonstrating theirabiding relevance." Martin Jay, University of California,Berkeley