In this lecture I argue that Adorno’s peculiar stance and position in and toward the society he criticized is best characterized as ‘atopian’, in the sense in which Pierre Hadot uses this term in respect of Socrates. I argue that this is crucial to his conception and practice of critical social theory. I go on to this in the context of the idea of ‘transcendental homelessness’ as it plays out in German philosophy from Hegel and Novalis through to Heidegger, Lukács and Adorno.