Peter E. Gordon is the Amabel B. James Professor of History and faculty affiliate in philosophy at Harvard University. He is the author or editor of many books, most recently Migrants in the Profane: Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization.
“With a fine sensibility, Gordon shows how Adorno, like Kafka, gropes in the gloom for glimpses of a precarious happiness, its possibility animating his critique of society.” -- Maeve Cooke, University College Dublin “Written in a captivating style, Gordon carefully analyzes the whole range of Adorno’s writings to demonstrate that the philosopher grounds his critique of contemporary societies in an idea of human flourishing that he takes as being accessible only in small, easily overlooked fragments within our damaged form of life. By this, Gordon manages something at which almost everyone else has failed so far: to give a coherent picture of the scattered pieces of Adorno’s idea of morality.” -- Axel Honneth, Columbia University