Adorno and the need in thinking : new critical essays /

Most essays in this volume originated in a 2002 conference at York University, Toronto. Its editors are listed as graduate students, yet their own contributions measure up well even against those of established scholars such as Lambert Zuidervaart (Univ. of Toronto). "The need in thinking"--a typically gnomic phrase from Adorno's Negative Dialectics (1973)--alludes to the practical engagement of theory: how for Adorno language is in tension with itself. That is why he preferred the essay format, in which (as he puts it) it would be wrong always to begin at the beginning. Following a useful translation of Adorno's early "Theses on the Language of the Philosopher," on which some contributors comment, are sections on metaphysics and logic, often defending Adorno against Jurgen Habermas and Albrecht Wellmer. Part 4 takes up Adorno's aesthetics, notably to rebut accusations of elitism leveled by British cultural studies. The best comes last: Asha Varadharajan (Queens Univ., Kingston) displays the same dialectical "tact" she also examines in Adorno's essays; and Andrew Biro (Acadia) looks at Adorno's "ecological thinking," and why truly "there's no place like home (oikos)." The book offers a pleasing typeface but lacks an index. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and scholars. M. Donougho University of South Carolina--Columbia