The Semblance of Subjectivity Essays in Adorno's Aesthetic Theory

Theodor W. Adorno died in 1969 and his last major work, Ästhetische Theorie, waspublished a year later. Only recently, however, have his aesthetic writings begun to receivesustained attention in the English-speaking world. This collection of essays is an importantcontribution to the discussion of Adorno's aesthetics in Anglo-American scholarship.The essays areorganized around the twin themes of semblance and subjectivity. Whereas the concept of semblance, orillusion, points to Adorno's links with Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, the concept of subjectivityrecalls his lifelong struggle with a philosophy of consciousness stemming from Kant, Hegel, andLukács. Adorno's elaboration of the two concepts takes many dialectical twists. Art, despite thetaint of illusion that it has carried since Plato's Republic, turns out in Adorno's account ofmodernism to have a sophisticated capacity to critique illusion, including its own. Adorno'saesthetics emphasizes the connection between aesthetic theory and many other aspects of socialtheory. The paradoxical genius of Aesthetic Theory is that it turns traditional concepts into atheoretical cutting edge.