Adorno and Performance

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

   PDF

2. Introduction to Adorno and Performance

   • Will Daddario, Karoline Gritzner

   Pages 1-22

3. Of Adorno’s Beckett

   • Michal Kobialka

   Pages 23-37

4. Thoughts Which Do Not Understand Themselves: On Adorno’s Dream Notes

   • Karoline Gritzner

   Pages 38-52

5. Performativization and the Rescue of Aesthetic Semblance

   • Andrea Sakoparnig

   Pages 53-66

6. On the “Difference between Preaching an Ideal and Giving Artistic Form to the Historical Tension Inherent in It”

   • Mischa Twitchin

   Pages 67-81

7. Cooking up a Theory of Performing

   • Anthony Gritten

   Pages 82-97

8. Thinking Performance in Neoliberal Times: Adorno Encounters Neutral Hero

   • Ioana Jucan

   Pages 98-114

9. Pleasing Shapes and Other Devilry: An Adornian Investigation of La Pocha Nostra Praxis

   • Stephen Robins

   Pages 115-129

10. Thinking — Mimesis — Pre-Imitation: Notes on Art, Philosophy, and Theatre in Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory

    • Marcus Quent

    Pages 130-142

11. On the Theatricality of Art

    • Anja Nowak

    Pages 143-154

12. Adorno and Performance: Thinking with the Movement of Language

    • Birgit Hofstaetter

    Pages 155-170

13. What Is Adorno Doing? Immanent Critique as Philosophical Performance

    • Mattias Martinson

    Pages 171-189

14. The Vanity of Happiness: Adorno and Self-Performance

    • Julie Kuhlken

    Pages 190-204

15. Writing as Life Performed

    • Martin Parker Dixon

    Pages 205-222

16. Back Matter

    Pages 223-244

    PDF

Adorno and Performance offers the first comprehensive examination of the vital role of performance within the philosophy of Theodor W. Adorno. Capacious in its ramifications for contemporary life, the term 'performance' here unlocks Adorno's dialectical thought process, which aimed at overcoming the stultifying uniformity of instrumental reason.

• Adorno
• Performance Philosophy
• Beckett
• bibliography
• critique
• dialectic
• Enzo Paci
• performance
• philosophy
• reason
• theatre
• Theodor W. Adorno
• writing

'Adorno and Performance pursues Adorno in lifelong performance. A richly evocative, heterodox body of his work as a philosopher, sociologist, musicologist, composer, aesthetician, and literary critic (and Adorno was all of these) is called on by scholar-critics who think (and think smartly) about theater in the broadest ways possible: all the world's a stage. This is a witty, highly informed, consistently thoughtful, indeed responsible investigation by young intellectuals as well as seasoned scholars, all of whom care about and with pretty much equal concern history, society, theater, performance, subjectivity, and human agency. Adorno speaks to them, but what they accomplish by way of Adorno is not a mirroring but a critical engagement for reasons that matter: the struggle for truths and the need for hope against whatever (usually considerable) odds.' - Professor Richard Leppert, University of Minnesota, USA

'The recently revived interest in the work of T.W. Adorno has made clear the need for new ways of understanding his relevance to a critical appraisal of contemporary culture. Adorno and Performance offers a wealth of perspectives on how Adorno's work can inform and be informed by reflection on performance, as something central both to the arts, particularly theatre and music, and to social and political life more generally.' - Professor Andrew Bowie, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

• Illinois State University, USA

  Will Daddario

• Aberystwyth University, UK

  Karoline Gritzner

Martin Parker Dixon, University of Glasgow, UK Anthony Gritten, Royal Academy of Music, UK Birgit Hofstaetter, University of Brighton, UK Ioana Jucan, Brown University, USA Michal Kobialka, University of Minnesota, USA Julie Kuhlken, Independent Scholar, USA Mattias Martinson, Uppsala University, Sweden Anja Nowak, University of British Columbia, Canada Marcus Quent, University of Leipzig, Germany Stephen Robins, Independent Scholar, UK Andrea Sakoparnig, Free University Berlin, Germany Mischa Twitchin, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK

Policies and ethics