Editing Theodor W. Adorno (section)

===Postwar Europe===
====Return to Frankfurt University====
Upon his return, Adorno helped shape the political culture of West Germany. Until his death in 1969, twenty years after his return, Adorno contributed to the intellectual foundations of the Federal Republic, as a professor at the [[University of Frankfurt am Main]], critic of the vogue enjoyed by Heideggerian philosophy, partisan of critical sociology, and teacher of music at the [[Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music]]. Adorno resumed his teaching duties at the university soon after his arrival,{{when|date=September 2012}} with seminars on "Kant's Transcendental Dialectic", aesthetics, Hegel, "Contemporary Problems in the Theory of Knowledge", and "The Concept of Knowledge". Adorno's surprise at his students' passionate interest in intellectual matters did not, however, blind him to continuing problems within Germany: The literary climate was dominated by writers who had remained in Germany during Hitler's rule, the government re-employed people who had been active in the Nazi apparatus and people were generally loath to own up to their own collaboration or the guilt they thus incurred. Instead, the ruined city of Frankfurt continued as if nothing had happened,{{citation needed|date=September 2012}} holding on to ideas of the true, the beautiful, and the good despite the atrocities, hanging on to a culture that had itself been lost in rubble or killed off in the concentration camps. All the enthusiasm Adorno's students showed for intellectual matters could not erase the suspicion that, in the words of [[Max Frisch]], culture had become an "alibi" for the absence of political consciousness.{{sfn|Müller-Doohm|2005|page=332}} Yet the foundations for what would come to be known as "The Frankfurt School" were soon laid: Horkheimer resumed his chair in social philosophy and the Institute for Social Research, rebuilt, became a lightning rod for critical thought.

====Essays on fascism====
Starting with his 1947 essay ''Wagner, Nietzsche and Hitler'',<ref>Adorno, T. (1947). Wagner, Nietzsche and Hitler. The Kenyon Review, 9(1), 155-162.</ref> Adorno produced a series of influential works to describe psychological fascist traits. One of these works was ''[[The Authoritarian Personality]]'' (1950),<ref>Adorno, [http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/frankfurt/ap/politics.pdf ''Politics and Economics in the Interview Material''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304101431/http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/frankfurt/ap/politics.pdf |date=4 March 2016 }}, ch.17</ref> published as a contribution to the ''Studies in Prejudice'' performed by multiple research institutes in the US, and consisting of '[[qualitative research|qualitative interpretation]]s' that uncovered the [[authoritarianism|authoritarian]] character of test persons through indirect questions.<ref name=":0" /> The books have had a major influence on sociology and remain highly discussed and debated. In 1951 he continued on the topic with his essay ''Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda'', in which he said that "Psychological dispositions do not actually cause fascism; rather, fascism defines a psychological area which can be successfully exploited by the forces which promote it for entirely non-psychological reasons of self-interest."<ref>Hammer, Espen (2006) [https://books.google.com/books?id=X3L5R3kiOh4C&pg=PA56 ''Adorno and the political''], pp.56–7</ref>

In 1952 Adorno participated in a group experiment, revealing residual National Socialist attitudes among the recently democratized Germans. He then published two influential essays, ''The Meaning of Working Through the Past'' (1959) and ''Education after Auschwitz'' (1966), in which he argued on the survival of the uneradicated [[National Socialism]] in the [[mindset]]s and institutions of the post-1945 Germany, and that there is still a real risk that it could rise again.<ref>Hammer (2006) p.69</ref> Later on, however, [[Jean Améry]]—who had been tortured at Auschwitz—would sharply object that Adorno, rather than addressing such political concerns, was exploiting Auschwitz for his metaphysical phantom "absolute negativity" ("absolute Negativität"), using a language intoxicated by itself ("von sich selber bis zur Selbstblendung entzückte Sprache").<ref>Andreas Dorschel, 'Der Geist ist stets gestört', in: ''[[Süddeutsche Zeitung]]'' nr. 129 (7 June 2004), p. 14.</ref>

====Public events====
In September 1951, Adorno returned to the United States for a six-week visit, during which he attended the opening of the Hacker Psychiatry Foundation in Beverly Hills, met [[Leo Löwenthal]] and [[Herbert Marcuse]] in New York, and saw his mother for the last time. After stopping in Paris, where he met [[Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler]], [[Michel Leiris]], and [[René Leibowitz]], Adorno delivered a lecture entitled "The Present State of Empirical Social Research in Germany" at a conference on opinion research. Here, he emphasized the importance of data collection and statistical evaluation while asserting that such empirical methods have only an auxiliary function and must lead to the formation of theories which would "raise the harsh facts to the level of consciousness."{{sfn|Müller-Doohm|2005|page=338}}

With Horkheimer as dean of the Arts Faculty, then rector of the university, responsibilities for the institute's work fell upon Adorno. At the same time, however, Adorno renewed his musical work: with talks at the Kranichsteiner Musikgesellschaft, another in connection with a production of [[Ernst Krenek]]'s opera ''[[Leben des Orest]]'', and a seminar on "Criteria of New Music" at the Fifth International Summer Course for New Music at Kranichstein. Adorno also became increasingly involved with the publishing house of [[Peter Suhrkamp]], inducing the latter to publish Benjamin's ''Berlin Childhood Around 1900'', Kracauer's writings, and a two-volume edition of Benjamin's writings. Adorno's own recently published ''Minima Moralia'' was not only well received in the press, but also met with great admiration from Thomas Mann, who wrote to Adorno from America in 1952:
{{blockquote|I have spent days attached to your book as if by a magnet. Every day brings new fascination ... concentrated nourishment. It is said that the companion star to Sirius, white in colour, is made of such dense material that a cubic inch of it would weigh a tonne here. This is why it has such an extremely powerful gravitational field; in this respect, it is similar to your book.{{sfn|Müller-Doohm|2005|page=343}}}}

Yet Adorno was no less moved by other public events: protesting the publication of [[Heinrich Mann]]'s novel ''[[Professor Unrat]]'' with its film title, ''[[The Blue Angel]]''; declaring his sympathy with those who protested the scandal of big-game hunting; and, penning a defense of prostitutes.

====More essays on mass culture and literature====
Because Adorno's American citizenship would have been forfeited by the middle of 1952 had he continued to stay outside the country, he returned once again to [[Santa Monica]] to survey his prospects at the Hacker Foundation. While there he wrote a content analysis of [[Western astrology|newspaper horoscopes]] (now collected in ''The Stars Down to Earth''), and the essays "Television as Ideology" and "Prologue to Television"; even so, he was pleased when, at the end of ten months, he was enjoined to return as co-director of the Institute.

Back in Frankfurt, he renewed his academic duties and, from 1952 to 1954, completed three essays: "Notes on Kafka", "Valéry Proust Museum", and an essay on Schoenberg following the composer's death, all of which were included in the 1955 essay collection ''Prisms''. In response to the publication of [[Thomas Mann]]'s ''[[The Black Swan (Mann novella)|The Black Swan]]'', Adorno penned a long letter to the author, who then approved its publication in the literary journal ''Akzente''. A second collection of essays, ''Notes to Literature'', appeared in 1958. After meeting [[Samuel Beckett]] while delivering a series of lectures in Paris the same year, Adorno set to work on "Trying to Understand Endgame", which, along with studies of [[Proust]], [[Paul Valéry|Valéry]], and [[Balzac]], formed the central texts of the 1961 publication of the second volume of his ''Notes to Literature''. Adorno's entrance into literary discussions continued in his June 1963 lecture at the annual conference of the [[Friedrich Hölderlin|Hölderlin Society]]. At the Philosophers' Conference of October 1962 in Münster, at which [[Jürgen Habermas|Habermas]] wrote that Adorno was "A writer among bureaucrats", Adorno presented "Progress".{{sfn|Müller-Doohm|2005|page=362}}

Although the ''Zeitschrift'' was never revived, the Institute nevertheless published a series of important sociological books, including ''Sociologica'' (1955), a collection of essays, ''Gruppenexperiment'' (1955), ''Betriebsklima'', a study of work satisfaction among workers in Mannesmann, and ''Soziologische Exkurse'', a textbook-like anthology intended as an introductory work about the discipline.

====Public figure====
Throughout the fifties and sixties, Adorno became a [[public figure]], not simply through his books and essays but also through his appearances in radio and newspapers. In talks, interviews, and round-table discussions broadcast on Hessen Radio, South-West Radio, and Radio Bremen, Adorno discussed topics as diverse as "The Administered World" (September 1950), "What is the Meaning of 'Working Through the Past?"' (February 1960), and "The Teaching Profession and its Taboos" (August 1965). Additionally, he frequently wrote for ''Frankfurter Allgemeine'', ''Frankfurter Rundschau'', and the weekly ''Die Zeit''.

At the invitation of [[Wolfgang Steinecke]], Adorno took part in the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music in Kranichstein from 1951 to 1958. Yet conflicts between the so-called [[Darmstadt school]], which included composers like [[Pierre Boulez]], [[Karlheinz Stockhausen]], [[Luigi Nono]], [[Bruno Maderna]], [[Karel Goeyvaerts]], [[Luciano Berio]], and [[Gottfried Michael Koenig]], soon arose, receiving explicit expression in Adorno's 1954 lecture, "The Aging of the New Music", where he argued that atonality's freedom was being restricted to serialism in much the same way as it was once restricted by twelve-tone technique. With his friend [[Eduard Steuermann]], Adorno feared that music was being sacrificed to stubborn rationalization. During this time, Adorno not only produced a significant series of notes on Beethoven (which was never completed and only published posthumously) but also published ''Mahler: A Musical Physiognomy'' in 1960. In his 1961 return to Kranichstein, Adorno called for what he termed a "musique informelle", which would possess the ability "really and truly to be what it is, without the ideological pretense of being something else. Or rather, to admit frankly the fact of non-identity and to follow through its logic to the end."{{sfn|Müller-Doohm|2005|page=397}}

====Post-war German culture====
At the same time Adorno struck up relationships with contemporary German-language poets such as [[Paul Celan]] and [[Ingeborg Bachmann]]. Adorno's 1949 dictum—"To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric"—posed the question of what German culture could mean after Auschwitz; his own continual revision of this dictum—in ''Negative Dialectics'', for example, he wrote that "Perennial suffering has as much right to expression as a tortured man has to scream"; while in "Commitment", he wrote in 1962 that the dictum "expresses in negative form the impulse which inspires committed literature"—was part of post-war Germany's struggle with history and culture. Adorno additionally befriended the writer and poet [[Hans Magnus Enzensberger]] as well as the film-maker [[Alexander Kluge]].

In 1963, Adorno was elected to the post of chairman of the German Sociological Society, where he presided over two important conferences: in 1964, on "Max Weber and Sociology" and, in 1968, on "Late Capitalism or Industrial Society". A debate launched in 1961 by Adorno and [[Karl Popper]], later published as the ''[[Positivist Dispute in German Sociology]]'', arose out of disagreements at the 1959 14th German Sociology Conference in Berlin.

Adorno's critique of the dominant climate of post-war Germany was also directed against the pathos that had grown up around Heideggerianism, as practiced by writers like [[Karl Jaspers]] and [[Otto Friedrich Bollnow]], and which had subsequently seeped into public discourse. His 1964 publication of ''The Jargon of Authenticity'' took aim at the halo such writers had attached to words like "angst", "decision", and "leap". After seven years of work, Adorno completed ''[[Negative Dialectics]]'' in 1966, after which, during the summer semester of 1967 and the winter semester of 1967–68, he offered regular philosophy seminars to discuss the book chapter by chapter. Among the students at these seminars were the Americans [[Angela Davis]] and Irving Wohlfarth. One objection, which would soon take on ever greater importance, was that critical thought must adopt the standpoint of the oppressed, to which Adorno replied that negative dialectics was concerned "with the dissolution of standpoint thinking itself."

====Confrontations with students====
At the time of ''Negative Dialectics''{{'}} publication, [[student protest]]s fragilized West German democracy. Trends in the media, an educational crisis in the universities, the Shah of Iran's 1967 state visit, German support for the war in Vietnam, and the emergency laws combined to create a highly unstable situation. Like many of his students, Adorno too opposed the [[German Emergency Acts|emergency laws]], as well as the war in Vietnam, which, he said, proved the continued existence of the "world of torture that had begun in Auschwitz".{{sfn|Müller-Doohm|2005|page=451}} The situation only deteriorated with the police shooting of [[Benno Ohnesorg]] at a protest against the Shah's visit. This death, as well as the subsequent acquittal of the responsible officer, were both commented upon in Adorno's lectures. As politicization increased, rifts developed within both the Institute's relationship with its students as well as within the Institute itself. Soon, Adorno himself would become an object of the students' ire. At the invitation of [[Péter Szondi]], Adorno was invited to the [[Free University of Berlin]] to give a lecture on [[Goethe]]'s ''[[Iphigenia in Tauris (Goethe)|Iphigenie in Tauris]]''. After a group of students marched to the lectern, unfurling a banner that read "Berlin's left-wing fascists greet Teddy the Classicist", a number of those present left the lecture in protest after Adorno refused to abandon his talk in favor of discussing his attitude on the current political situation. Adorno shortly thereafter participated in a meeting with the Berlin [[Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund]] (SDS) and discussed "Student Unrest" with Szondi on West German Radio. However, as 1968 progressed, Adorno became increasingly critical of the disruptions students experienced in university life. His isolation was only compounded by articles published in the magazine ''alternative'', which, following the lead of [[Hannah Arendt]]'s articles in ''Merkur'', claimed Adorno had subjected Benjamin to pressure during his years of exile in Berlin and compiled Benjamin's ''Writings'' and ''Letters'' with a great deal of bias. In response, Benjamin's longtime friend [[Gershom Scholem]], wrote to the editor of ''Merkur'' to express his disapproval of the "in part, shameful, not to say disgraceful" remarks by Arendt.{{sfn|Müller-Doohm|2005|page=458}}

Relations between students and the West German state continued to deteriorate. In spring 1968, a prominent SDS spokesman, [[Rudi Dutschke]], was gunned down in the streets; in response, massive demonstrations took place, directed in particular against the [[Springer Press]], which had led a campaign to vilify the students. An open appeal published in ''[[Die Zeit]]'', signed by Adorno, called for an inquiry into the social reasons that gave rise to this assassination attempt as well as an investigation into the Springer Press' manipulation of public opinion. At the same time, however, Adorno protested against disruptions of his own lectures and refused to express his solidarity with their political goals, maintaining instead his autonomy as a theoretician. Adorno rejected the so-called unity of theory and praxis advocated by the students and argued that the students' actions were premised upon a mistaken analysis of the situation. The building of barricades, he wrote to Marcuse, is "ridiculous against those who administer the bomb."{{sfn|Müller-Doohm|2005|page=463}} Adorno would refer to the radical students as "stormtroopers ([[Sturmabteilung]]) in jeans."<ref>Siemens, Daniel. ''Stormtroopers: A New History of Hitler's Brownshirts'', p. 327. Yale University Press, 2017.</ref>

In September 1968, Adorno went to Vienna for the publication of ''Alban Berg: Master of the Smallest Link''. Upon his return to Frankfurt, events prevented his concentrating upon the book on aesthetics he wished to write: "Valid student claims and dubious actions", he wrote to Marcuse, "are all so mixed up together that all productive work and even sensible thought are scarcely possible any more."{{sfn|Müller-Doohm|2005|page=464}} After striking students threatened to strip the Institute's sociology seminar rooms of their furnishings and equipment, the police were brought in to close the building.

====Later years====
Adorno began writing an introduction to a collection of poetry by [[Rudolf Borchardt]], which was connected with a talk entitled "Charmed Language", delivered in Zürich, followed by a talk on aesthetics in Paris where he met Beckett again. Beginning in October 1966, Adorno took up work on ''Aesthetic Theory''. In June 1969, he completed ''Catchwords: Critical Models''. During the winter semester of 1968–69 Adorno was on sabbatical leave from the university and thus able to dedicate himself to the completion of his book of aesthetics.

For the summer semester, Adorno planned a lecture course entitled "An Introduction to Dialectical Thinking", as well as a seminar on the dialectics of subject and object. But at the first lecture, Adorno's attempt to open up the lecture and invite questions whenever they arose degenerated into a disruption from which he quickly fled. After a student wrote on the blackboard, "If Adorno is left in peace, capitalism will never cease", three women students approached the lectern, bared their breasts and scattered flower petals over his head.{{sfn|Müller-Doohm|2005|page=475}} Yet, Adorno continued to resist blanket condemnations of the protest movement, which would have only strengthened the conservative thesis according to which political irrationalism was the result of Adorno's teaching. After further disruptions to his lectures, Adorno cancelled the lectures for the rest of the seminar, continuing only with his philosophy seminar. In the summer of 1969, weary from these activities, Adorno returned once again to [[Zermatt]], Switzerland, at the foot of [[Matterhorn]] to restore his strength. On 6 August, he died of a [[heart attack]], during a vacation in [[Visp]].<ref>[https://www.suhrkamp.de/rights/nachricht/120th-anniversary-of-the-birth-of-theodor-w-adorno-b-4154 "120th Anniversary of the Birth of Theodor W. Adorno"]</ref>