Henry W. Pickford’s (Ph.D. Comparative Literature and Philosophy, Yale Universiy.; MA, Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh) research interests focus on modern philosophy and literature in German and Russian, with emphasis on the German philosophical tradition from Kant to Critical Theory. He is the author of The Sense of Semblance: Philosophical Analyses of Holocaust Art (Fordham University Press); Thinking with Tolstoy and Wittgenstein: Emotion, Expression and Art (Northwestern University Press; Russian translation with Academic Studies Press); co-author of In Defense of Intuitions: A New Rationalist Manifesto (Palgrave Macmillan); co-editor of Der aufrechte Gang im windschiefen Kapitalismus: Modelle kritischen Denkens (Springer Verlag); editor and translator of Theodor W. Adorno, Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords (Columbia University Press) and Selected Early Poems of Lev Loseff (Spuytenduyvil Press); and author of over thirty articles and book chapters. He is currently co-authoring the book Adorno: A Critical Life and co-editing the Oxford Handbook to Adorno, and editing and translating selections from Adorno’s notebooks for Verso Press. He has a secondary appointment in Duke's Philosophy department.

Office Location: Department of Germanic Languag, Box 90256, Durham, NC 27708
Email Address:
Web Page: http://duke.academia.edu/HenryPickford

Office Hours:

Thursdays, 18:00 - 19:00, and by appointment.
Please email to make appointment.

Education:
D.Phil., Yale University, 2001
MA, University of Pittsburgh, 2004
PhD, Yale University, 2001
MA, Stanford University, 1986
BA, Dartmouth College, 1983

Specialties:

Critical Theory
Philosophy and Literature
German Idealism
Aesthetics

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

• Pickford, HW. "Reason and Self-Reflection in Dialectic of Enlightenment." Berlin Journal of Critical Theory 9.2 (July, 2025): 39-68.  [abs]
• Pickford, HW. "Adorno and the categories of resistance." Constellations 31.2Wiley, (June, 2024): 129-145. [doi]
• Pickford, H. "Life, Logic, Style: On Late Wittgenstein." Wittgenstein and Literary Studies. Cambridge University Press, 2023. 168-193. [doi]  [abs]
• Pickford, HW. "Life, Logic, Style: On Late Wittgenstein." Wittgenstein and Literary Studies.  2022. 168-193. [doi]  [abs]
• Pickford, HW. ""Teaching of Life": Tolstoy's moral-philosophical aesthetics." Palgrave Handbook of Russian Thought.  2021. 597-619. [doi]  [abs]

Curriculum Vitae