Change of Scene: Surveying the Ruins 341practised applied social research under the heading of ‘real sociology’.
Schelsky had an association with it dating back to his time in Hamburg.
The Institute of Social Research had an interest in collaborating with
the centre in the fields of industrial and commercial sociology, where the
trade unions also had a connection.^54
These were years in which Horkheimer was very much taken up with
administrative duties: firstly as dean of the Arts Faculty and then as
rector of the university. During this time it fell to Adorno both to
represent the institute to the outside world and to coordinate the cur-
rent research projects. He complained in letters to his mother that he
was gradually being overwhelmed by the mounting burden of institute
work. His lectures which were so important to him had to be made up
on the spur of the moment. His multifarious obligations gave him the
feeling that he ‘came home in the evening feeling like a real pen-pusher’.
He was in general too exhausted ‘to have time for anything else’.^55
Nevertheless, he found time for other things. He needed no persua-
sion to take part in cultural life. As early as January, he accepted an
invitation from the music critic Wolfgang Steinecke to give an intro-
ductory talk before a concert of the Amsterdam String Quartet at the
Kranichsteiner Musikgesellschaft. A little later he gave another talk in
connection with the Frankfurt production of Ernst Krenek’s opera Orest.
Nor would he be denied the opportunity to take part in the Fifth Inter-
national Summer Course for New Music in Kranichstein, which was
likewise organized by Steinecke.^56 Schoenberg’s A Survivor from War-
saw, op. 46, received its first German performance there. For Adorno,
Kranichstein was important because after many years it brought him
together again with Ernst Krenek and Willi Reich; he met Steuermann
and Kolisch there and was introduced to Edgar Varèse. He also con-
ducted five seminars with the title ‘Criteria of New Music’.^57 In July
1950 Adorno took part in the Darmstädter Gespräche which were
devoted to the subject ‘The Image of Man in our Time’, where the
principal topic debated was Hans Sedlmayr’s Loss of the Centre (1948),
a highly controversial book at the time.^58 He defended the thesis that
modern art must declare its commitment to radical negativity as the
only possible value. The oppositional function of the avant-garde was
completely incompatible with the need for harmony through art.
In addition to all these activities, Adorno became increasingly in-
volved in the new publishing house that Peter Suhrkamp had set up in
1950.^59 He had been in touch with both Suhrkamp and his editor Friedrich
Podszus even before he met them in person. Thanks to the success
of Minima Moralia, he came in the course of time to have a certain
influence on both men. He persuaded them to agree to the publication
of Benjamin’s Berlin Childhood around 1900 as well as the plan for two
volumes of his selected writings. He also urged them to publish Siegfried
Kracauer’s writings and new editions of his novels.^60 In the process, he
was able to overcome the ‘melancholy scepticism’ of Suhrkamp, who