Reading Adorno again on Odysseus I was struck by the simplistic and all too obvious subversion. Adorno understands Odysseus, who would have thought it, as a bourgeois, or rather as the burgeois archetype. While this can be easily wiped away as a case of extreme presentism, and, dare I say, of rather bourgeois presentism on the part of Theodor himself, Adorno’s more dangerous but equally intolerable claim is that Odysseus loses his identity entirely. Odysseus becomes and remains nobody, insinuates Adorno, and returns as nobody to Ithaca. This entirely corrupts the entire project of nostos that leads to the restoration of the order of the household and kingdom.

How we read the Odyssey determines how we understand ourselves as Europeans or as of European descent. We should be aware of Adorno’s misreading but at the same time also be able to show why it is such a profound misreading.

Learn how to read the Odyssey with the attention and respect it deserves at my summmer seminar on the text. Begins July 11. Enrolment closing soon.

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