In patriarchy, women are conceptually interchangeable. And the contingent status of “women” drives the restless, conflictual quality of feminism in theory and in practice. Critically examining the troubled and troubling status of “woman” is among the many projects of feminism and contributes to its vitality as a field of inquiry and politics. It is a field of inquiry that grows in intensity and effectiveness precisely through its disagreements and resistance to closure. However, I do hope to highlight some of his most compelling insights and ideas about the task of philosophy, to show some affinities between Adorno and feminist concerns, and thus entice the reader into an engagement with the chapters that follow.įeminism is critically reflexive about its status as a protest against conditions that make it possible that is, it is simultaneously diagnostic and symptomatic. The contributors do the work necessary to move the reader into the arguments. I cannot possibly do justice to the scope and complexity of Adorno’s thinking here, nor do I wish to attempt an introductory explanation of his ideas to the reader. Nonetheless, given the questions feminism raises and the questions raised about feminism, there are good reasons to “go back to Adorno.”1 In this introduction I will elaborate on some of these reasons. While Adorno had many thoughts about women, about modern feminism, and about sexuality, he offered little in the way of sustained argument about them. The contributors to this volume look at issues in feminism using insights from Theodor Adorno and reread Adorno using insights from feminism. Introduction: Feminism and Negative Dialectics The Economy of the Same: Identity, Equivalence, and Exploitation Unmarked and Unrehearsed: Theodor Adorno and the Performance Art of Cindy Shermanġ5. Unfreedom, Suffering, and the Culture Industry: What Adorno Can Contribute to a Feminist Ethicsġ4. Negative Dialectics and Inclusive Communicationġ2.ğeminist Politics and the Culture Industry: Adorno’s Critique Revisitedġ3. Living with Negative Dialectics: Feminism and the Politics of Sufferingġ1. Intersectional Sensibility and the Shudderĩ.Ěn-aesthetic Theory: Adorno, Sexuality, and Memoryġ0. Mimetic Moments: Adorno and EcofeminismĨ. “No Happiness Without Fetishism”: Minima Moralia as Ars Amandiħ. Introduction: Feminism and Negative DialecticsĤ.Ě Feminine Dialectic of Enlightenment? Horkheimer and Adorno Revisitedĥ. In addition to the editor, contributors are Paul Apostolidis, Mary Caputi, Rebecca Comay, Jennifer Eagan, Mary Ann Franks, Eva Geulen, Sora Han, Andrew Hewitt, Gillian Howie, Lisa Yun Lee, Bruce Martin, and Lambert Zuidervaart.ġ. It will be especially valuable for senior undergraduate and graduate courses in contemporary political, social, and cultural theory. His philosophical and cultural investigations inspire reconsideration of Enlightenment principles as well as a rethinking of “postmodern” ideas about identity and the self.įeminist Interpretations of Theodor Adorno will introduce feminists to Adorno’s work and Adorno scholars to modes of feminist critique. They take Adorno’s historical situatedness as a scholar into consideration while exploring the relevance of his ideas for post-Enlightenment feminist theory. The essays are exemplary as works in interdisciplinary scholarship, covering a wide range of issues and ideas in feminism as authors critically interpret the many facets of Adorno’s work. Questions addressed in the volume range from dilemmas in feminist aesthetic theory to the politics of suffering and democratic theory. His Dialectic of Enlightenment (written with Max Horkheimer) was profoundly influential as a critique of fascistic and authoritarian impulses in Enlightenment thinking in the context of late capitalism. Ranging across the disciplines of philosophy, musicology, and sociology, his work has had an impact in many fields. Inflected by Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, Adorno’s thinking defies easy categorization. With Max Horkheimer he contributed to the advance of critical theorizing about Enlightenment philosophy and modernity. Theodor Adorno was a leading scholar of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany, otherwise known as the Frankfurt School. Adorno is often left out of the “canon” of influences on contemporary feminist theory, but these essays show that his work can provide valuable material for feminist thinking about a wide range of issues.
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