Benjamin and Adorno on Art and Art Criticism

Thijs Lijster considers the thought of Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno on such key topics as the relationship between art and historical experience, between avant-garde art and mass culture, and between the intellectual and the public.

Thijs Lijster teaches philosophy of art at the University of Groningen. He contributed to Conceptions of Critique in Modern and Contemporary Philosophy (eds. R. Sonderegger and K. De Boer, Palgrave 2012), Institutional Attitudes. Instituting Art in a Flat World (ed. P. Gielen, Valiz 2013) and The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, 2nd edition (ed. M. Kelly, Oxford University Press 2014). He was awarded with the ABG/VN Essay Prize 2009, the Prize for Young Art Critics 2010 and the NWO/Boekman Dissertation Prize 2015.

Introduction, 1. Autonomy and Critique, 2. Ends of Art, 3. Experience, History, and Art, 4. The Art of Critique, Appendix - Notes on a Camp