ABSTRACT
One might say that experience is the union of tradition with an open yearning for what is foreign.
‘In Memory of Eichendorff’ (Adorno 1991: 55)
Theodor Adorno’s thought, his philosophy and sociology, which are inseparable from each other, are permeated by a complex reflection on the experience of the foreign that traverses some of his major undertakings from his early work to his most mature systematisations. This reflection takes language, subjectivity and the philosophical concept of non-identity as its key themes and, as will be argued in this chapter, partly emanates and is profoundly influenced by Adorno’s own personal experience of exile and return. This chapter examines how Adorno reflected on his homecoming and how his return to Germany shaped his mature thought. It also seeks to illuminate, through an examination of Adorno’s philosophical thought, some of the motives that are at the centre of this book.
