Time diagnosis, autonomy of art and domination in Adorno's socio-aesthetical thinking

• Grant number: 17/23817-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: January 22, 2018
• End date: April 21, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Ricardo Ribeiro Terra
• Grantee: Lutti Mira Salineiro
• Supervisor: Genel Katia
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France
• Associated to the scholarship: 15/22485-1 - On Adorno's aesthetical materialism in the thirties, BP.IC

Abstract

Departing from our past researches on Adorno's socio-aesthetical thinking of the thirties and forties, our aim in this project is to compare the adornian time diagnosis of the Dialectic of enlightenment with his latest writings of the sixties - mainly Free time and a chapter of the Aesthetic theory, named Society -, presenting some of their differences. One of our objectives is, thus, to elaborate and contribute to the thesis that there's a fundamental difference in Adorno's time diagnosis of the forties and the sixties. In order to do so, we choose to highlight two aspects of Adorno's thinking in the mentioned texts: the first is his view on the possibility of art's autonomy, and the second is the extent of society's domination over subjectivity. In what concerns the autonomy of art, our study will focus on Adorno's sociological evaluation of its possibility, moving from its impediment in the Dialectic of enlightenment to its restoration in the Aesthetic theory. In this last oeuvre, art's autonomy is characterized as a pole of resistance to the culture industry, potential not yet seen in the forties, and this is mainly due to Adorno's sensibility to some new artistic phenomena of the sixties. The second aspect of Adorno's thinking that we shall directly approach also touches a central pole of resistance developed in Adorno's late writings, that is his revaluation of the possibility of resistance by the subjects to the culture industry, as well as a reassessment of the thesis of total integration promoted by late capitalism advanced in the Dialectic of enlightenment. On texts like Free time and Transparencies on film, Adorno insists in the disparities between the ideology fostered by the culture industry and its concrete absorption by the subjects, investing on the idea that some level of resistance was inherently present in people's consciousness. Therefore, our object will be the study of the constitution, inside Adorno's socio-aesthetical thinking of the sixties, of refuges of critical resistance, issue undeveloped in his time diagnosis of the forties. (AU)