Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno are considered today to be the two most significant early theorists in founding critical theory. In their works and correspondence, both thinkers turn to art and the aesthetic as a vital way for understanding modern society and developing philosophical methods. This volume of original essays seeks to understand how they influenced each other and disagreed with each other on fundamental questions about art and the aesthetic. The books deals with a variety of key philosophical questions, such as: *How does art involve distinctive modes of experience? *What is the political significance of modern art? *What does aesthetic experience teach us about the limitations of conceptual thought? *How is aesthetic experience implicated in the very medium of thought, language? Ultimately the book presents a systematic argument for the foundational significance of the aesthetic in the development of the early critical theory movement.
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 Intn++rieur, 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"", Stn++phane 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
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 Interieur, 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", Stephane 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
