INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY

Abstract

These words apply even more to the present publication of the last academic lectures given by Adorno, in 1 96 8 , the year before his death. They are also the only lectures by him of which a tape recording has survived. This edition therefore goes a step further than Adorno himself did when he occasionally published improvised lectures in slightly revised form. By transcribing the tape recording literally - as far as possible - this edition attempts to convey what otherwise would have been irretrievably lost: a living impression of Adorno's lectures, however inadequately it may be reflected in print. Readers should not forget for a moment that they are reading not a text by Adorno, but a transcript of a talk 'the truth of which lay in its very transience'.