| This dissertation studies natural history in the musical thought of Theodor Adorno. Beginning with his earliest mature works, Adorno was persistently concerned with the unending entwinement of human history and material nature. His reception in philosophy, literary theory and cultural studies has dealt relatively little with this register of his work, focusing more often on his critique of modern culture, and especially of what he calls the culture industry. His reception in music studies, similarly, has dealt rarely with this theme, tending far more often to understand Adorno's musical thought as a form of hermeneutics that has more to do with contemporary concerns than with his own.;The present study works to address this lacuna, first by reconstructing Adorno's natural historical thought from the perspective of his musical thought, and second by demonstrating the role of natural history in Adorno's philosophy of music. Reading Adorno's natural historical texts with music in mind means, above all, paying persistent attention to the way in which these texts figure the experience of time. Indeed, time and temporality lie at the heart of Adorno's idea of natural history, which he describes as an effort to grasp nature as history and history as nature. In turn, demonstrating the role of natural history in Adorno's philosophy of music will mean showing the manner in which he understands music as site where it is possible to experience this chiasmic entwinement of nature and history. Thus, music can appear as an experience of history within nature insofar as the temporality of music can confront ossified forms of experience with their historical contingency and transience. In turn, music can appear as an expression of nature within history insofar as the ephemerality of musical time serves as an index of the transience of material nature, a transience that this historical human life must share, insofar as it is necessarily entwined with material nature. Finally, for Adorno, the expression of this transience is also an expression of hope, as the same passing away that ultimately means death for the living also means the possibility of the radically new and unforeseen. |
