In Practice: Adorno, Critical Theory and Cultural Studies(v. 9 German Linguistic and Cultural Studies)

This collection of papers is about the ways in which Adorno's work is stimulating new practices in critical theory and cultural studies. The twelve contributors, who are based in Europe, the United States and Asia, approach Adorno from a number of different angles, positions and disciplines, covering literary and film studies, social and political thought, psychology and sociology. The topics chosen by the contributors range from the contradictions of representation to intersubjectivity, from poetry to consumer culture, from aesthetic theory to avant-garde film, from views of Adorno in modern Spain to the impact his work is having on postcolonial thinking in Asia. Each essay is engaged in a re-reading of Adorno, detailing his critical position and exploring his intellectual and historical contexts. Moreover, in tracing the influence of his ideas, the essays explain why Adorno is such an important voice. Taken as a whole, the essays show ways of productively imagining Adorno, and testify to the lasting relevance and usefulness of his work for a whole range of issues and topics in contemporary theory and cultural studies.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Holger Briel/Andreas Kramer: Introduction - Josh Cohen: Dialectic of Entanglement: Adorno, Auschwitz, and the Contradictions of Representation - Ben Morgan: Dialectic of Enlightenment: A Missing Link in Histories of the Self - Arne Klawitter: 'We must produce something that doesn't yet exist': Tasks and Problems in Adorno's and Foucault's Social Criticism - Ingolfur Bluehdorn: From Critical Theory to the Theory of Societal Self-Critique: Ulrich Beck's Attempt at Saving the Critical Project - Colin B. Grant: Fictions and Counterfactual Ideals in the Concept of 'Intersubjectivity' - Holger Briel: Thinking Adorno: The Necessity of Poetry - Michael Spindler: Adorno's Critique of Veblen - Martin Roiser: The American Reception of The Authoritarian Personality - Amresh Sinha: Adorno on Mimesis in Aesthetic Theory - Martin Brady: Film as Music and Script: Adorno's Transparencies on Film - Eugenia Afinoguenova: Adorno - a Farce Character, or: The Origins of Cultural Critique in Spain - Rajeev S. Patke: Adorno: An Asian Extrapolation.

About the Author :
The Editors: Holger Briel teaches German Literature, Philosophy and Communication Studies at the University of Surrey, Guildford (UK). Prior teaching engagements included the University of Massachusetts, Indiana State University, New York University and the University of Rostock. He is the author of Adorno oder wo liegt das Ende der Moderne? (1993) and has published widely on contemporary German culture, philosophy, fiction and media. Andreas Kramer is Senior Lecturer in German in the Department of European Languages at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He has research interests in modernism and the avant-garde, comparative literature, and Critical Theory. His previous publications include books on Carl Einstein and Gertrude Stein, and articles on modernist writers with an emphasis on Expressionism and Dada, and Adorno at Oxford (written with Evelyn Wilcock).