Aesthetic Ground of Critical Theory

Nathan Ross is associate professor of philosophy at Oklahoma City University. He is the author of On Mechanism in Hegel’s Social and Political Philosophy (2008) as well as a forthcoming book on aesthetic experience in classical German philosophy and critical theory. Contributors:Natalia Baeza, Post-doctoral Researcher in Philosophy, University of Florence; Georg Bertram, Professor of Philosophy, Freie Universität Berlin; Rick Elmore, Visiting Assistant Professor, Appalachian State University; Tom Huhn, Professor of Philosophy, New York School of Visual Arts; Eduardo Mendieta, Professor of Philosophy, State University of New York at Stony Brook; Marcia Morgan, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies, Muhlenberg College; Alison Ross, Australian Research Council Future Fellow in Philosophy, Monash University; Andrea Sakoparnig, PhD candidate, Freie Universität Berlin; Surti Singh, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, American University Cairo; Stéphane Symons, Assistant Professor of Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; Joseph Weiss, Lecturer, DePaul University

The generative and troubled relationship between Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno decisively shaped early Critical Theory, giving rise to some of the most important concepts and issues in modern aesthetics and cultural studies. This insightful collection of essays sheds new light on their relationship – showing why their debates remain highly relevant for politically progressive thought and action.

• Acknowledgments / Introduction: The Aesthetic Ground of Critical Theory, Nathan Ross / 1. Benjamin and Adorno on Art as Critical Practice, Georg W. Bertram / 2. The Benjaminian Moment in Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory: Spaciality and the Topos of the Bourgeois Intérieur, Marcia Morgan / 3. Adorno’s Critical Theory at the Crossroads of Hegel and Benjamin, Natalia Baeza / 4. The Jargon of Ontology and the Critique of Language: Benjamin, Adorno, and Philosophy’s Motherless Tongue, Eduardo Mendieta / 5. ‘The Polarity Informing Mimesis’: The Social Import of Mimesis in Benjamin and Adorno, Nathan Ross / 6. Walter Benjamin’s Critique of the Category of Aesthetic Form: ‘The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility’ from the Perspective of Benjamin’s Early Writing, Alison Ross / 7. Walter Benjamin and the “highly productive use of the human being’s self-alienation”, Stéphane Symons / 8. The Composer as Producer, Joseph Weiss / 9. The Aesthetic Experience of Shudder: Adorno and the Kantian Sublime, Surti Singh / 10. Ecological Experience: Aesthetics, Life, and the Shudder in Adorno’s Critical Theory, Rick Elmore / 11. ‘Enigmaticalness’ as a Fundamental Category in Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory, Andrea Sakoparnig / 12. Aesthetic Education, Human Capacity, Freedom, Tom Huhn / Bibliography / Index