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 Adorno's 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 Father's 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: Kracauer's 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 Interests Commuting 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: Adorno's debate with Krenek 115
9 Towards a Theory of Aesthetics 119
¿ Rather more than a beginner's 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 Adorno's 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 Adorno's 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: Adorno's 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: Adorno's 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: Adorno's 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? Adorno's 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