Literature and the modern system of the arts: sources of criticism in Adorno

This paper derived from (1) contribution to conference paper, ‘Literature, Art and the Arts', presented at the Westminster English Colloquium on ‘Adorno and Literature', Westminster University, May, 2003; also (2) in revised version to Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy seminar, Middlesex University, October, 2003.
In terms of my ongoing assessment of forms of critique of capitalist culture within the field of the contemporary arts – ‘art' in the expanded sense – this paper belongs with my more recently published piece: ‘The Absolute Artwork Meets The Absolute Commodity', in Radical Philosophy no. 146, 2007.