Manchester Summer Reading Group: Adorno's Negative Dialectics
Welcome back to our first *in-person* reading group since the lockdown! We'll be meeting on Fridays at 6pm.
Given the potentially ongoing Covid/Lockdown situation and the British Summer situation, we'll be playing locations by ear each week, and updating this page as appropriate. We will meet at mainline rail stations each week, and decide where to go from there. If you're interested to join and haven't been in touch before, please feel free to write to london@platypus1917.org or facebook.com/platypusmanchester
( • required / + recommended readings)
Required background reading:
• Chris Cutrone, "Revolution without Marx? Rousseau, Kant and Hegel" (2013); Review of Andrew Feenberg, The Philosophy of Praxis (2015); "Why still read Lukacs? The place of 'philosophical' questions in Marxism" (2014); "Ends of philosophy" (2018); "On philosophy and Marxism" (2020); and “The negative dialectic of Marxism” (2021)
Recommended supplemental reading:
+ Adorno, Lectures on Negative Dialectics; History and Freedom; Introduction to Dialectics; Ontology and Dialectics; Metaphysics: Concepts and Problems
Primary sources:
• Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics (1966, trans. E.B. Ashton, 1973)
+ Alternate translation by Dennis Redmond (2001/2021) [2021 updated PDF]
Charts of terms:
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Kant's 3 Critiques [PNG] and philosophy [PNG] chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Adorno's critique of actionism chart of terms
Week 1: June 4, 2021
Meet on Manchester Victoria station concourse: between the buffet entrance and nearby ticket barriers.
• Gillian Rose, Review of Adorno's Negative Dialectics (1976)
• Theodor W. Adorno, "Why still philosophy?"
• Chris Cutrone, "Ends of philosophy" (2018); "On philosophy and Marxism" (2020); and “The negative dialectic of Marxism” (2021)
Week 2: June 11, 2021
Meet on Manchester Victoria station concourse: between the buffet entrance and nearby ticket barriers.
• Adorno, Negative Dialectics, Prologue (Preface and Introduction)
Week 3: June 18, 2021
• Adorno, Negative Dialectics, Part One: Relation to Ontology: I. The Ontological Need
Week 4: June 25, 2021
• Adorno, Negative Dialectics, Part One: Relation to Ontology: II. Being and Existence
Week 5: July 2, 2021
• Adorno, Negative Dialectics, Part Two: Negative Dialectics: Concepts and Categories
Week 6: July 9, 2021
• Adorno, Negative Dialectics, Part Three: Models: I. Freedom
Week 7: July 16, 2021
• Adorno, Negative Dialectics, Part Three: Models: II. World Spirit and Natural History
Week 8: July 23, 2021
• Adorno, Negative Dialectics, Part Three: Models: III. Meditations on Metaphysics
+ Cutrone, "Ends of philosophy" (2018); "On philosophy and Marxism" (2020); and “The negative dialectic of Marxism” (2021)
