Adorno: The Recovery of Experience

Acknowledgments and a Note on Translation

My engagement with Adorno began a decade ago under the auspices of Doug Moggach in the PhD program of the University of Ottawa. My ambition at the time was to rescue Adorno’s contribution to critical social theory from under the weight of its Habermasian critique. That project first crystallized during a stay at Frankfurt in 1997–1998 which, in large part because of Axel Honneth’s encouragement, proved to be an incomparable intellectual experience. This book began from a sense that the completion of that project did not really touch the core of what Adorno was all about. In trying to make sense of why that was so, I have benefited in the interim from conversations with Jay Bernstein, whose work on Adorno has been a continual point of intellectual reference. Brian O’Connor and Tom Huhn have supported this project from the beginning. I hope it is a better work for their advice and encouragement. I couldn’t have completed a project like this without an outlet from the wastes of Adornian abstraction. I am grateful in particular to two of my colleagues at BMCC, Matthew Ally and Jack Estes, for their disinclination to take Adorno too seriously. The professional insight of Ron Hayduk was also invaluable. It would not have been possible to realize this work without the support of the Philosophy Committee of PSC-Cuny. Two Research Awards in 2004–2005 and 2005–2006 made it possible for me to do all the substantial writing in a reasonable space of time. Release Time won for junior faculty at the City University of New York by the Professional Staff Congress also proved to be vital in giving me breathing room to think and write. This project began life around the same time as the birth of my son, Holden, three years ago. Its completion coincided (almost to the day) with the birth of my daughter, Eden. A number of people (Sue, Chuck, Lauren, and Mindy, and, in a cameo appearance, Alan and Rose) came through with babysitting assistance at just the right times to allow me to concentrate on Adorno. Finally, Hildy made this work possible in more ways than I know how to express. This book is dedicated to her. ix Acknowledgments NOTE ON TRANSLATION All the translations from German and French original sources in this work are my own. x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...