Adorno proposed antisemitism as the focus for the Institute’s collective book project.

Evidence

How would it be if the book … were to crystallize around antisemitism? This would bring with it the concretization and limitation which we have been looking for. It would also be possible for the topic to motivate most of the Institute’s associates, whereas if we write something like a critique of the present judged by the category of the individual, my nightmare is that Marcuse would then prove that the category of the individual has contained both progressive and reactionary elements since the early days of the bourgeoisie. Then again, antisemitism is today really the central injustice, and our form of physiognomy must attend to the world where it shows its face at its most gruesome. Finally, the question of antisemitism is the one in which what we are writing would be most likely to find an effective context, without our having to lose anything by it. And I can imagine, even without any illusory optimism, that a work of this sort would come over to the outside world in a way that would help us. For my part, I would give up years to produce it without a moment’s hesitation. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 735

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the later ‘Elements of Anti-Semitism’ chapter of Dialectic of Enlightenment and the ongoing debate over whether the critique of reason centers on antisemitism. — connects to: Adorno proposed anti-Semitism as the crystallization point of the joint book. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1290