Adorno's Modernism: Art, Experience, and Catastrophe

by Espen Hammer

Theodor W. Adorno's aesthetics has dominated discussions about art and aesthetic modernism since World War II, and continues to inform contemporary theorizing. Situating Adorno's aesthetic theory in the context of post-Kantian European philosophy, Espen Hammer explores Adorno's critical view of art as engaged in reconsidering fundamental features of our relation to nature and reality. His book is structured around what Adorno regarded as the contemporary aesthetician's overarching to achieve a vision of the fate of art in the modern world, while demonstrating its unique cognitive potential. Hammer offers a lively examination of Adorno's work through the central problem of what full human self-actualization would require, and also discusses the wider philosophical significance of aesthetic modernism. This book will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of social philosophy, art, and aesthetics.

242 pages, Hardcover

First published October 5, 2015

About the author

Espen Hammer is a Norwegian philosopher. He is a professor of philosophy at Temple University and has held visiting professorships at the New School for Social Research and the University of Pennsylvania. Between 1998 and 2007 he was a Lecturer and later Reader at the University of Essex. He currently lives in Philadelphia.

Hammer's main focus is on the post-Kantian European tradition of philosophy. Most of his work deals with questions of ethics, politics and subjectivity.