Continuum Adorno and Literature

About the Author David Cunningham is Principal Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Westminster and an editor of the journal Radical Philosophy.Nigel Mapp is Lecturer in English at the University of Tampere, Finland. Product Description Despite the recent upsurge of interest in Theodor Adorno's work, his literary writings remain generally neglected. Yet literature is a central element in his aesthetic theory. Building on the current emergent interest in modern philosophical aesthetics, this book offers a wide-ranging account of the literary components of Adorno's thinking. Bringing together original essays from a distinguished international group of contributors, it offers the reader a user-friendly path through the major areas of Adorno's work in this area. It is divided into three sections, dealing with the concept of literature, with poetry and poetics, and with modernity, drama and the novel respectively. At the same time, the book provides a clear sense of the unique qualities of Adorno's philosophy of literature by critically relating his work to a number of other influential theorists and theories including contemporary postmodernist thought and cultural studies. Review 'This elegant and finely argued collection of essays...sends the reader back to the Notes to Literature, in particular, with a sharpened appetite...' 'In a series of scrupulous readings of Adorno's reflections on literature, which have been noticeably neglected in the recent reconsideration of his thought among anglophone scholars, they communicate the sophistication of his criticism and its own critical and utopian potential for literary studies. ' Radical Philosophy, 2007mention- The Chronicle of Higher Education/ October 20, 2006