'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correspondence with Horkheimer, Benjamin, Berg, Marcuse, Kracauer and Mann to interviews, notes and both published and unpublished writings, Muller-Doohm situates Adorno's contributions in the context of his times and provides a rich and balanced appraisal of his significance in the 20th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.
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 Adornos 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 Fathers 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: Kracauers 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 InterestsCommuting 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 Metropolis 82
Apprenticeship with his master and teacher 83
7 In Search of a Career 95
Between philosophy and music: no parting of the ways 100
8 Music Criticism and Compositional Practice 110
Theorizing the twelve-tone method: Adornos debate with Krenek 115
9 Towards a Theory of Aesthetics 119
Rather more than a beginners foray into philosophy 125
10 A Second Anomaly in Frankfurt: The Institute of Social Research 132
Two inaugural lectures 134
A Privatdozent in the shadow of Walter Benjamin 145
The Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung and Adornos ideological critique of music 150
In league with Horkheimer against a second school of sociology under the same roof 155
The opera project: The Treasure of Indian Joe 159
Part III Emigration Years: An Intellectual in a Foreign Land A Twofold Exile: Intellectual Homelessness as Personal Fate 169
11 The Coordination of the National Socialist Nation and Adornos Reluctant Emigration 173
Hibernating with dignity? 181
12 Between Academic and Authentic Concerns: From Philosophy Lecturer to Advanced Student in Oxford 187
Sticks and carrots 194
An abiding distaste: jazz as a tolerated excess 198
Setbacks . . . 203
. . . and personal losses 207
13 Writing Letters as an Aid to Philosophical Self-Clarification: Debates with Benjamin, Sohn-Rethel and Kracauer 214
A double relationship: Gretel and Max 226
14 Learning by Doing: Adornos Path to Social Research 242
In the Institute of Social Research on Morningside Heights 255
Between two stools once again: a long road from New York to Los Angeles 267
15 Happiness in Misfortune: Adornos Years in California 273
Messages in a bottle, or, How to create enlightenment about the Enlightenment 278
Merits of social research: studies in the authoritarian personality 288
Moral feelings in immoral times 298
The Privy Councillor: Adorno and Thomas Mann 311
Part IV Thinking the Unconditional and Enduring the Conditional The Explosive Power of Saying No 325
16 Change of Scene: Surveying the Ruins 328
Playing an active role in postwar Germany? 336
Back to America: horoscope analysis and TV research 348
Letting the cat out of the bag: Kafka, Beckett, Hölderlin 353
17 Gaining Recognition for Critical Theory: Adornos Activities in the Late 1950s and Early 1960s 366
In the stream, but swimming against the tide 374
Speaking of the rope while in the country of the hangman 380
The crisis of the subject: self-preservation without a self 387
The purpose of life: understanding the language of music 392
Right living? Places, people, friendships 398
18 Eating Bread: A Theory Devoured by Thought 412
The dispute about positivism: Via discourse to the Frankfurt School 421
Against German stuffiness 430
The fat child 433
What kind of a society do we live in? Adornos analysis of the present 441
19 With his Back to the Wall 448
Patricide deferred 457
The futility of defending a theory as practice 460
Moments of happiness, despite everything 465
The divided nature of art 470
Death 474
Epilogue: Thinking Against Oneself 481
Notes 492
References and Bibliography 615
Index 645
