From Damaged Life

Jordi Maiso is Associate Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. His area of specialization is contemporary social philosophy and aesthetics. He has published extensively on Frankfurt School Critical Theory, its history and its current interest. He is also Chief Editor of Constelaciones. Revista de Teoría Crítica, member of the editorial board of the Journal of Adorno Studies and president of the Spanish Society of Critical Theory Studies.

• IntroductionPart One: The Core of Experience and the Coordinates of CritiqueCritical Theory as a “Science of Mourning”I. RESIGNATION? HISTORY, EMANCIPATION AND BARBARISM“After Auschwitz”“Where is the proletariat?”“From the standpoint of redemption”II. DOES IT NOT HURT TO BE DEVOURED? THE POSITION OF THE CRITICAL INTELLECTUALThe fragile nonconformity of the spiritArt as a battlefieldCritical theory and praxisIII. A FAREWELL TO MARX? UNRAVELING CONTEMPORARY PREHISTORYThe “unity of an epoch”: Capitalism and fascismProtohistory of contemporary prehistoryAbsolutized self-preservationPart Two: ADORNO AND THE CRITICAL THEORY OF CAPITALISMIn the Labyrinth of the Social ConstitutionIV. A NEW STATE OF UNFREEDOM: THE LOGIC OF CAPITALIST SOCIALIZATIONCapitalist society as a “system”: a twist on totalityCapitalism as “natural history”A social whole with no outside: “Total socialization”V. CULTURE INDUSTRY: INTEGRATION AS MASS DECEPTIONThe social location of cultureThe culture industry as an instance of socializationThe “deception” of the culture industry and its limitsVI. TOWARDS A NEW TYPE OF HUMAN BEING: ANTHROPOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION OF ADVANCED CAPITALISMThe historical decline of the individual and the sacrifice of the livingTraits of the “new type of human being”Contradiction in the subject and the role of psychoanalysisVII. STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND UNCONSCIOUSNESS: THE NEW FIGURE OF IDEOLOGYSociality and appearance: The transformation of ideologyCritique of ideology and analysis of the self“Normal monsters”: The persistent potential of authoritarianismCoda: “THE LIMIT OF REIFICATION”: ADORNO AND LATE CAPITALISM TODAY

The publication in English of Jordi Maiso’s book on the thought of Theodor W. Adorno is an event to be welcomed by scholars of Marx, Marxism and Critical theory.