Kathleen League has given us a timely, well argued book on T. W. Adorno's concept of utopia and its implications for the philosophy of art. Adorno, Radical Negativity, and Cultural Critique offers rewards to readers at several levels, ranging from those who have had only the briefest introduction to Adorno's thought to those engaged by the recent controversies of his ... Read morecritics. This richly informed book, drawing on materials from Oscar Wilde to the Sex Pistols and Avatar, both explicates Adorno's argument and demonstrates its relevance to contemporary culture. League builds a persuasive case that Adorno's cultural criticism is even more important now than it was at the time of his death in 1969.
Gary Shapiro, Tucker-Boatwright Professor in the Humanities-Philosophy, University of Richmond This text is a welcome blend of a close reading of Adorno and an appeal to the continuing need for the utopian in contemporary society. League puts Adorno in conversation with his critics and successors in order to provide an important argument about the decline of the possibility of utopia in the modern world as well as the dangers that rejection of utopia brings about for our society. This is an important contribution to Adorno scholarship and an equally important contribution to contemporary social theory.
Richard A. Lee Jr., DePaul University, Professor of Philosophy, DePaul University Show Less