Synopses & Reviews
Most English-language writing on Theodor Adorno has attempted to placehim in various contexts and to differentiate him from other thinkers. Such work, while important, marks our failure to appropriate Adorno's ideas imaginatively. InExact Imagination, Late Work, Nicholsen proposes such an appropriation through afocus on the centrality of the aesthetic dimension in Adorno.Adorno uses the termexact imagination to mark the conjunction of knowledge, subjective experience, andaesthetic form. Exact imagination, as distinct from creative imagination, thusdescribes a form of nondiscursive rationality. According to Adorno, exactimagination discovers or produces truth by reconfiguring the material at hand; thus, knowledge is inseparable from the configurational form imagination gives it. Latework is characterized by the disjunction of subjectivity and objectivity. In itsattempt to grasp late phenomena, Adorno's oeuvre itself takes on the form of latework.Exact imagination and late work mark the bounds of Nicholsen's exploration. Thefive interlocked essays, based on material from Adorno's aesthetic writings, takeup such issues as subjective aesthetic experience, the historicity of artworks andour experience of them, Adorno's conception of language, the nature ofconfigurational or constellational form in Adorno's work, and the relation betweenthe artwork, aesthetic experience, and philosophy. A subtext is the unraveling ofAdorno's use of the ideas of his colleague Walter Benjamin. Nicholsen's essaysthemselves can be perceived as a constellation of their own around the central issueof the inseparability of form in its aesthetic dimension and nondiscursiverationality.
Review
Nicholsen's Exact Imagination, Late Work is the distilled, reflectedproduct of countless hours alongside, and deeply within, Adorno'slanguages. Her brilliant achievement here is to have demonstrated theemphatic intimacy between Adorno's aesthetics and his compositions. The MIT Press
Synopsis
Until now, most English-language writing on Adorno has attempted to place him in various contexts and to differentiate him from other thinkers. Such work, while important, masks our failure to imaginatively appropriate Adorno's ideas. In
Exact Imagination, Late Work, Shierry Weber Nicholsen begins the process of appropriation through the centrality of the aesthetic dimension.
Adorno uses the term "exact imagination" to describe nondiscursive rationality. Exact imagination, which is the opposite of creative imagination, marks the conjunction of knowledge, subjective experience, and aesthetic form. Unlike exact imagination, "late work" is characterized by the disjunction of subjectivity and objectivity.
Exact imagination and late work mark the bounds of Nicholsen's exploration. The five interlocked essays, based on material from Adorno's "aesthetic writings," take up such issues as subjective aesthetic experience, the historicity of artworks and our experience of them, Adorno's conception of language, the nature of configurational or constellational form in Adorno's work, and the relation between the artwork, aesthetic experience, and philosophy. A subtext is the unraveling of Adorno's use of the ideas of his colleague Walter Benjamin. Nicholsen's essays themselves can be perceived as a constellation of their own around the central issue of the inseparability of form in its aesthetic dimension and nondiscursive rationality.
Synopsis
In Exact Imagination, Late Work, Shierry Weber Nicholsen begins the process of appropriating Adorno through the centrality of the aesthetic dimension.
Until now, most English-language writing on Adorno has attempted to place him in various contexts and to differentiate him from other thinkers. Such work, while important, masks our failure to imaginatively appropriate Adorno's ideas. In Exact Imagination, Late Work, Shierry Weber Nicholsen begins the process of appropriation through the centrality of the aesthetic dimension.
Adorno uses the term "exact imagination" to describe nondiscursive rationality. Exact imagination, which is the opposite of creative imagination, marks the conjunction of knowledge, subjective experience, and aesthetic form. Unlike exact imagination, "late work" is characterized by the disjunction of subjectivity and objectivity.
Exact imagination and late work mark the bounds of Nicholsen's exploration. The five interlocked essays, based on material from Adorno's "aesthetic writings," take up such issues as subjective aesthetic experience, the historicity of artworks and our experience of them, Adorno's conception of language, the nature of configurational or constellational form in Adorno's work, and the relation between the artwork, aesthetic experience, and philosophy. A subtext is the unraveling of Adorno's use of the ideas of his colleague Walter Benjamin. Nicholsen's essays themselves can be perceived as a constellation of their own around the central issue of the inseparability of form in its aesthetic dimension and nondiscursive rationality.
Synopsis
Until now, most English-language writing on Adorno has attempted to place him in various contexts and to differentiate him from other thinkers. Such work, while important, masks our failure to imaginatively appropriate Adorno's ideas. In
Synopsis
In Exact Imagination, Late Work, Shierry Weber Nicholsen begins the process of appropriating Adorno through the centrality of the aesthetic dimension.
About the Author
Shierry Weber Nicholsen teaches environmental philosophy and psychology in Antioch University Seattle's M.A. Program on Environment and Community and is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice in Seattle. She has translated several works by Theodor Adorno and Jürgen Habermas.