Theodor W. Adorno

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) was a renowned German philosopher, sociologist, musicologist and composer, and a leading member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory. As a critic of both fascism and what he called the culture industry, his writings—such as Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), Minima Moralia (1951) and Negative Dialectics (1966)—strongly influenced the European New Left. He was the director of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt from 1956 until his death in 1969.