Dr Kyle Kaplan
- School: Music
- Mentors: Dr Tomás McAuley; Prof. Brian O'Connor
Intimate Critique: Henze, Adorno, and the Aesthetics of Recommitment
For my first book project, “Intimate Critique: Henze, Adorno, and the Aesthetics of Commitment,” I address this through a detailed study of composer Hans Werner Henze’s work with an international roster of associates between 1955 and 1961. Drawing from intensive archival research, I demonstrate that the artistic freedom Henze found during this period was contingent on his affiliation with artists who privileged the conventions of German romanticism over high modernist aesthetics. I argue that these collaborations did not proffer a naive withdrawal into the past, but rather staged the postwar crisis of artistic intelligibility within the domain of interpersonal attachment. I ultimately place these works in counterpoint with Theodor W. Adorno's contemporaneous writings on aesthetics, intimacy, and ethics to advocate for the practice of what I term intimate critique--a method that identifies both the creative support offered by intimate relationships as well as the exclusions that sustain them.
I received my PhD in music studies at Northwestern University, where I was a Mellon fellow with the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. I also earned a certificate from the Critical Theory Program at Northwestern, and hold degrees from McGill University and UCLA.
I have taught numerous courses in music studies as well as gender and sexuality studies at Northwestern, DePaul University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Website: (opens in a new window)https://kkaplan.academia.edu
Contact details:
Tel: +353-1-716 4695
Email: kyle.kaplan@ucd.ie