Prisms

Description

Prisms, essays in cultural criticism and society, is the work of a critic and scholar who has had a marked influence on contemporary American and German thought. It displays the unusual combination of intellectual depth, scope, and philosophical rigor that Adorno was able to bring to his subjects, whether he was writing about astrology columns in Los Angeles newspapers, the special problems of German academics immigrating to the United States during the Nazi years, or Hegel's influence on Marx. In these essays, Adorno explores a variety of topics, ranging from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Kafka's The Castle to Jazz, Bach, Schoenberg, Proust, Veblen's theory of conspicuous consumption, museums, Spengler, and more. His writing throughout is knowledgeable, witty, and at times archly opinionated, but revealing a sensitivity to the political, cultural, economic, and aesthetic connections that lie beneath the surfaces of everyday life. Prisms is included in the series, Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy. [From Amazon] SERIES FOREWORD 5 FOREWORD by Theodor W. Adorno 7 INTRODUCTION Translating the Untranslatable by Samuel M. Weber 9 Cultural Criticism and Society 17 The Sociology of Knowledge and Its Consciousness 35 Spengler after the Decline 51 Veblen’s Attack on Culture 73 Aldous Huxley and Utopia 95 Perennial Fashion—Jazz 119 Bach Defended against his Devotees 133 Arnold Schoenberg, 1874-1951 147 Valery Proust Museum 173 The George-Hofmannsthal Correspondence, 1891-1906 187 A Portrait of Walter Benjamin 227 Notes on Kafka 243