How to Be Alone with Others: Helmuth Plessner, Theodor W. Adorno and Roland Barthes on Tact

Haustein, Katja (2019) How to Be Alone with Others: Helmuth Plessner, Theodor W. Adorno and Roland Barthes on Tact. The Modern Language Review, 114 (1). pp. 1-21. ISSN 0026-7937. (doi:https://doi.org/10.5699/modelangrevi.114.1.0001) (Access to this publication is currently restricted. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided)

Abstract

This article looks at three theories of tact that are rarely compared. Although developed during different periods of radical change in the twentieth century, they are based on the same diagnosis: the key problem of modern subjectivity is not the increased distance between individuals, but, on the contrary, its disappearance. This article explores how tact, understood as an ongoing negotiation between the demands of convention and the ‘unruly claims of the individual’ (Adorno), emerges as a figure of distance, and of deviation, a figure that does not only serve to describe the relations between individuals, or the individual within the group, but that also facilitates alternative forms of critical inquiry.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled keywords:	tact, deviation, distance, modern subjectivity, hermeneutics
Subjects:	P Language and Literature
Divisions:	Faculties > Humanities > School of European Culture and Languages Faculties > Humanities > School of European Culture and Languages > Comparative Literature
Depositing User:	Katja Haustein
Date Deposited:	17 Oct 2018 14:06 UTC
Last Modified:	12 Feb 2019 13:05 UTC
Resource URI:	https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/69614 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)
Haustein, Katja:	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9649-1152