Stefan Baumgarten - Adorno refracted: German critical theory in the

Book chapter

Stefan Baumgarten
Kirsten Malmkjær, Adriana Şerban, Fransiska Louwagie, Key Cultural Texts in Translation, John Benjamins, Amsterdam/New York, 2018, pp. 223–241

Cite

APA Click to copy
Baumgarten, S. (2018). Adorno refracted: German critical theory in the neoliberal world order. In K. Malmkjær, A. Şerban, & F. Louwagie (Eds.), Key Cultural Texts in Translation (pp. 223–241). Amsterdam/New York: John Benjamins.

Chicago/Turabian Click to copy
Baumgarten, Stefan. “Adorno Refracted: German Critical Theory in the Neoliberal World Order.” In Key Cultural Texts in Translation, edited by Kirsten Malmkjær, Adriana Şerban, and Fransiska Louwagie, 223–241. Amsterdam/New York: John Benjamins, 2018.

MLA Click to copy
Baumgarten, Stefan. “Adorno Refracted: German Critical Theory in the Neoliberal World Order.” Key Cultural Texts in Translation, edited by Kirsten Malmkjær et al., John Benjamins, 2018, pp. 223–41.

BibTeX Click to copy

@inbook{stefan2018a,
  title = {Adorno refracted: German critical theory in the neoliberal world order},
  year = {2018},
  address = {Amsterdam/New York},
  pages = {223–241},
  publisher = {John Benjamins},
  author = {Baumgarten, Stefan},
  editor = {Malmkjær, Kirsten and Şerban, Adriana and Louwagie, Fransiska},
  booktitle = {Key Cultural Texts in Translation}
}

Abstract
Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno’s oeuvre has been widely translated into English, and despite an uneven reception history in the Anglophone world, he can be regarded as a “fashionable”, perhaps even a “celebrity” philosopher in English translation. Whilst it remains an open question to what extent a high intellectual pedigree can be distilled into cultural capital when refracted through the lens of translation, it appears reasonable to assume that key works of German critical theory in English are refracted through a positivist order of discourse, which is at odds with the ideological, or more precisely utopian, convictions of mainstream critical theorists. This article discusses the translational recontextualisation of Adorno’s concept of the “non-identical” and some of its associated conceptual frames.