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

Prisms

Politics & Social Sciences

Adorno, Theodor

Samuel Weber (Introduction)

Philosophy

Adorno: The Stars Down to Earth and Other Essays on the Irrational in Culture

A collection of key articles on the irrational in mass culture, relevant to the understanding of phenomena such as astrology and New Age cults, the power of neo-fascist propaganda and the psychological basis of popular culture, showing Theodor Adorno at his brilliant and maddening best.

Social Sciences

Routledge

The Stars Down to Earth (Routledge Classics)

The Stars Down to Earth shows us a stunningly prescient Adorno. Haunted by the ugly side of American culture industries he used the different angles provided by each of these three essays to showcase the dangers inherent in modern obsessions with consumption. He engages with some of his most enduring themes in this seminal collection, focusing on the irrational in mass culture - from astrology to new age cults, from anti-semitism to the power of neo-fascist propaganda. He points out that the modern state and market forces serve the interest of capital in its basic form. Stephan Crook's introduction grounds Adorno's arguments firmly in the present where extreme religious and political organizations are commonplace - so commonplace in fact that often we deem them unworthy of our attention. Half a century ago Theodore Adorno not only recognised the dangers, but proclaimed them loudly. We did not listen then. Maybe it is not too late to listen now.

The Jargon of Authenticity (Routledge Classics)

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.

Business & Money

Text: English, German (translation)

The Positivist dispute in German sociology

Heinemann: london

Essays on Music

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.

Arts & Photography

Music

University of California Press

Leppert, Richard

Gillespie, Susan H.

Book by Adorno, Theodor W, Adorno, Theodor

Aesthetic Theory (International Library of Phenomenology and Moral Sciences)

ADORNO, THEODOR W.

Routledge & Kegan Paul Books Ltd

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Adorno, Theodor. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Adorno, Theodor

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Adorno, Theodor. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Prisms

Adorno: The Stars Down to Earth and Other Essays on the Irrational in Culture

Adorno: The Stars Down to Earth and Other Essays on the Irrational in Culture

The Stars Down to Earth (Routledge Classics)

The Jargon of Authenticity (Routledge Classics)

The Jargon of Authenticity (Routledge Classics)

The Positivist dispute in German sociology

Essays on Music

Essays on Music

Aesthetic Theory (International Library of Phenomenology and Moral Sciences)