Adorno's 'Minima Moralia' in the 21st century : fascism, work, and ecology

"This interdisciplinary volume revisits Adorno's lesser-known work, Minima Moralia, and makes the case for its application to the most urgent concerns of the 21st century. Contributing authors situate Adorno at the heart of contemporary debates on the ecological crisis, the changing nature of work, the idea of utopia, and the rise of fascism. Exploring the role of critical pedagogy in shaping responses to fascistic regimes, alongside discussions of extractive economies and the need for leisure under increasingly precarious working conditions, this volume makes new connections between Minima Moralia and critical theory today. Another line of focus is the aphoristic style of Minima Moralia and its connection to Adorno's wider commitment to small and minor literary forms, which enable capitalist critique to be both subversive and poetic. This critique is further located in Adorno's discussion of a utopia that is reliant on complete rejection of the totalising system of capitalism. The distinctive feature of such a utopia for Adorno is dependent upon individual suffering and subsequent survival, an argument this book connects to the mutually constitutive relationship between ecological destruction and right-wing authoritarianism. These timely readings of Adorno's Minima Moralia teach us to adapt through our survival, and to pursue a utopia based on his central ideas. In the process, opening up theoretical spaces and collapsing the physical borders between us in the spirit of Adorno's lifelong project"-- Provided by publisher Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Contents 6 Contributors 7 Forword: Rehearsals for the Right Life 9 Acknowledgments 17 An Adorno for the 21st Century: Introduction 18 Part I: Thought after Fascism 28 Chapter 1: Minima Moralia and the Contradictions of Postwar Pedagogy 30 Professor, Expert, Critic, Counselor: Adorno’s Public Roles 31 Autonomy and Postwar Enlightenment 35 Society as Organized Heteronomy: The Case of Germany 37 Minima Moralia and the Problems of a Postwar Pedagogy 41 Chapter 2: “Breathtaking Leaps” or from Doorknobs to Fascism 45 Part II: The Effects of the Aphorism 60 Chapter 3: Adorno’s Senses of Critique : Gesture, Suffering, Utopia 62 Gesture 62 Suffering 68 Utopia 72 Chapter 4: Negative Dialectics, Negative Events: The Aphorism and Melancholy Historicism 78 Aphoristic Assemblages and the Wound of History 80 Aphoristic Anthropologies and Cultural Production 82 Aphoristic Rhythms 87  90 Part III: A Labor Theory of the Present 92 Chapter 5: “The Whole of Life Must Look Like a Job”: Minima Moralia and the Capitalocene 94 I 97 II 99 III 103 Chapter 6: Life Still Doesn’t Live: Adorno’s Guide to the Realm of the Dead 107 Melancholy Science for a Dying World 107 After the Avalanche 110 Where Is the Proletariat? 114 Caught Together, Hung Together 118 Self-preservation unto Death 121 Join the Inhuman Club 123 Acknowledgments 126 Part IV: Adorno’s Ecology 128 Chapter 7: Adorno and Animality after Auschwitz 130 Adorno and the “Animal Question” 131 Animality at Auschwitz 135 Entanglements 142 Chapter 8: Adorno’s Anthropocene 146 Notes 160 Foreword 160 An Adorno for the Twenty-First Century 161 Chapter 1 164 Chapter 2 165 Chapter 3 167 Chapter 4 170 Chapter 5 173 Chapter 6 175 Chapter 7 183 Chapter 8 190 Index 192