Gretel Adorno, the Typewriter: Sacrificial Lambs and Critical Theory’s ‘Risk of Formulation’

ABSTRACT

The extensive ‘secretarial’ labour that Gretel Karplus Adorno performed for the Frankfurt School is often overlooked in critical accounts. This article examines the Adornos' division of textual labour, and Karplus' ‘vulture-like’ stenography, distinguishing it from the dominant modernist views of secretarial labour, such as T. S. Eliot's automaton typist, and Henry James's typist-as-medium. The Adornos' stenographical method hinges upon a dialectical division of labour, which can be read through Theodor Adorno's aphorism ‘Sacrificial Lamb’. Adorno's writer elides the ‘risk of formulation’ necessary to commit to unformed ideas, by engaging his ‘troublesome helper’ typist in a dialectical struggle over textual authority. Whilst the dictator dominates his aide, the text still bears the imprint of its invisible contributor. Indeed, as Karplus shoulders Adorno's own divested ‘risk of formulation’ after they wed in 1937, he develops his critique of the capitalist mode of production, which lures women to the workforce under the promise of emancipation, and instead exploits and devalorizes their mental and physical labour. Simultaneously, Adorno cultivates a philosophical style that supports his modernist aesthetics, characterised by fragmentation, parataxis, and verbal improvisation, abetted by Karplus and their mutual investment in the risks of writing.

KEYWORDS:

• Gretel Adorno
• Theodor Adorno
• typewriting
• modernism
• the Frankfurt School
• critical theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Tamlyn Avery was awarded her PhD in literary studies from UNSW Sydney, where she currently teaches English and Media Studies. Her most recent publications look at representations of women's labour, racial characterisation, and the mediatic unconscious in American modernist literature. She is currently writing a book on the history of the American Bildungsroman (novel of self-cultivation).

Notes

1 Hereafter referred to by her maiden name ‘Karplus,’ for clarity.

2 Staci Lynn von Boeckmann’s 2004 doctoral thesis remains the most extensive large-scale project centred on Karplus.

3 Adorno’s letters to his parents recurrently discuss Karplus’ continuing migraines, possibly caused by gall-bladder issues (Adorno 2006, 96); in the 1940s, she undergoes radiotherapy and colonic irrigation treatments, fattening diets, orthopaedic procedures including four weeks of immobilisation with weights attached to her spine (161).