Adorno for Revolutionaries. On the 75 Anniversary of Philosophy of New Music
Keynote speaker: Lydia Goehr (Columbia University)
Ben Watson wrote: “too many people talk about Theodor Adorno, and not enough of them go through the difficult but bracing task of reading his texts. He is an easy man to caricature because he believed in exaggeration as a means of reaching the truth. He said about psychanalysis that ‘only in its extremes is it true’. The same is true of his own writing” (Watson: 2011). Following the task entrusted by Watson, “Adorno for Revolutionaries: On the 75th Anniversary of ‘Philosophy of New Music‘” aims to reexamine Adorno’s music-philosophical texts in light of unexpected (or extreme) musical phenomena. It also seeks to consider music that never appeared in Adorno’s texts through his own aesthetic categories. In other words, it is about exploring the less-traveled tensions that arise from the connection between Adorno’s music writings and certain types of music (whether popular or classical) that would not initially conform to traditional interpretations of the author of “Minima Moralia.” Ultimately, exploring these new territories would broaden the limits of Adorno’s musical aesthetics and allow for reflection on its relevance or contemporaneity.
Certainly, the year 2024 marks two curious anniversaries that fuel and enrich this philosophical exploration. These anniversaries connect two seemingly irreconcilable figures: Theodor W. Adorno and Frank Zappa. Indeed, this year marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of Adorno’s “Philosophy of New Music” and the 50th anniversary of Zappa’s “Apostrophe.” For this reason, Lydia Goehr will deliver a lecture titled “What Mothers of Invention?: Contravening expectations in the music and words of Adorno and Zappa” and will then engage in a dialogue with participants presenting their research at the event.
To this end, we encourage submissions from young scholars (PhD candidates or young PhD) working in a range of disciplinary orientations, from philosophy and musicology to cultural studies, visual arts, and film studies, to discuss themes including, but not limited to:
• the historic and contemporary reception of “Philosophy of New Music”
• new approaches to Adorno’s critique to popular music and music industry
• critical theory and aesthetics of music in 21st century
• negative dialectics, criticism, cultural studies and film studies
• the historic opposition between notions of the ‘popular music’ and ‘art music’