Alone with Others

Katja Haustein teaches Comparative Literature at the University of Kent. She was a British Academy Research Fellow at Cambridge University, a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, and the recipient of a Leverhulme Research Fellowship. She is the author of Regarding Lost Time: Photography, Identity, and Affect in Proust, Benjamin, and Barthes (2012).

• 1. Tact's History; 2. Proxemics (Proust); 3. Alienation (Plessner – Adorno); 4. Individuation (Truffaut); 5. Approchement (Barthes).

'What does it mean to be tactful? Are there different forms of tact? And is being tactful always a good thing? Katja Haustein explores tact as a means to negotiate between conventions and authenticity. Drawing on the insights of Continental European literature, film, and thought, as well as on recent studies by Richard Sennett and others, she provides a penetrating analysis of this important yet often ignored concept in modern ethics and aesthetics. Lucidly written, historically informed, and philosophically convincing, Alone with Others is both a powerful exercise in intellectual history and a fascinating stimulus to examine our own behaviour.' Henk de Berg, Professor of German, University of Sheffield