| The study on Adorno was quite limited in China before 1990s, owing to the political context at that time, and only Harbermas' interpretation of Adorno was introduced into China. Since the beginning of this century, the research on Adorno has made new achievements. However, as the related reference books and materials in Chinese are still not enough, Adorno's aesthetic thoughts have not been studied and interpreted adequately. There specially lacks the study on his aesthetic modernity in China, although his aesthetic ideas embody the typical characteristics of aesthetic modernity, which were brought into being as a result of the reflection on modernity. Hence, this author attempts to study his aesthetic thoughts from the perspective of aesthetic modernity, to shed light on the present aesthetic transformation from ancient form to modernity in China.This text consists of eight parts: the introduction, the six chapters, and the conclusion.The introduction explains the approach of this text, that is, why the author interprets Adorno's aesthetic thoughts from the perspective of aesthetic modernity. This author firstly defines the basic concepts involved in this text (modernity, enlightenment modernity, and aesthetic modernity), and then tells about the background in which Adorno's aesthetic thoughts were produced, and what it has to do with the approach of this text.Chapter One, "Aesthetic Redemption", firstly reviews the history of the criticism of modernity in the west and checks its effects upon Adorno, and then discusses Adorno's criticism on the spirit of enlightenment. Adorno holds that the spirit of enlightenment is the embodiment of the identical philosophy, and it leads to the regressive instrumental reason. Consequently, Adorno, on the one hand, proposes negative dialectics as a substitute for identical thinking, and on the other hand, he believes that the mode of poetic thinking can supplement the subject-object cognitive mode of scientific thinking. In an aesthetic activity, the enigmatic quality of the nature or the artistic work appeals to the subject, and the subject, who throws away his subjectivity temporally, tries to apperceive and imitate it, and hence acquires a sense of the object or the artistic work, which possesses truth content.Chapter Two, Constellation of Beauty, deals with Adorno's analysis of the transience of beauty. Adorno thinks that beauty is not still or stable, but instant and dynamic, it varies as time changes. Therefore, aesthetics must be concerned with, and give theoretic interpretation of the contemporary artistic practice. Today, nothing about art goes without saying. The artistic practice has split into halves: cultural industry and modernism, both of which require theoretic interpretation. The second section of this chapter illustrates Adorno's analysis of modernism, while Chapter Five explores Adorno's criticism on cultural industry. Adorno thinks that the vigor of modernism comes from its negative strength, and the abstractness of modernism results from the absurdity of the society. Although modernist art seems absurd and illogic, it has a coherent and meaningful deep structure indeed.Chapter Three, the Release of Sensibilities, discusses Adorno's emphasis on aesthetic sensibilities. Based on his analysis of the oppression of senses against sensibilities, Adorno claims that beauty and artistic beauty in a traditional sense, accord with the spirit of enlightenment, which are those that can be recognize and controlled by the subject, or those embody the spirit of the subject, while those that are frightening to the subject or those can not be controlled by the subject, are called "ugly" and "ignorant", and repressed therefore. This leads to the fact that natural beauty has always been put under artistic beauty. Hence, ugliness and natural beauty becomes the symbols for people's repressed desires and sensibilities, and the presentation of ugliness and natural beauty in art becomes revolutionary. Accordingly, Adorno proposes that art today should depict the ugly and the natural, to release people's sensibilities and break the cage of the instrumental reason.Chapter Four, Aesthetic Autonomy and Aesthetic Sociality, is about Adorno's analysis of the dual quality of aesthetics. Aesthetic autonomy means that artistic creation should be done in accordance with its own logic and formal regulations so as to make artistic work alive; aesthetic sociality refers to the fact that art is nurtured in society, and is a metaphor for society. Of the two, Adorno thinks that aesthetic autonomy should come the first, because only when art obtains its autonomy, can it criticize the alienated society. Nevertheless, the two interact with each other, and there is a strain between them, so one should not go to extremes, ignoring either of them.Chapter Five, Criticism on Cultural Industry, is an important embodiment of aesthetic transcendence proposed by Adorno. Adorno holds that the significance of aesthetic activities is to transcend the alienated society. As reality is always defective, to criticize and transcend it should always be an important aspect of art. Adorno harshly criticizes cultural industry for the lack of transcending quality. After the analysis of the logic of Adorno's criticism on cultural industry, this chapter then discusses Adorno's criticism on free time and popular music, which are the most representative examples of his criticism on cultural industry.Chapter Six, Inter-textural Approach to Adorno's Aesthetic Modernity, attempts to approach Adorno's aesthetic ideas from other theorists' point of view. The first section includes the dispute between Adorno, and his contemporary, Benjamin, who is also considered as a member of Frankfurt School, and one of Adorno's students, Harbermas' criticism on Adorno. The second section discusses Adorno's relation to post-modernism, with one of the representatives of Reception Aesthetics—Jauss' criticism on Adorno included.The Conclusion, in the context of present China, explores the significance and inspiration of Adorno's aesthetic modernity on the construction of China's modern aesthetics.
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