Table of Contents

Introduction, Mirt Komel (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) 1. The Wave of the Sign: Pyramidal Sign, Haptic Hieroglyphs, and the Touch of Language, Mirt Komel (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) 2. The Structure of the Phonetical Touch: Unsettling the Mastery of Phonology Over Phonetics, Tomi Bartole (University of St. Andrews, UK) 3. Surplus of Touch: From the Forest of Symbols to the Jungle of Touch, Karmen Šterk (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) 4. Ontology of Touch: From Aristotle to Brentano, Gregor Moder (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) 5. Anatomical Aporia: Speculative Unity of Touch and Language, Goran Vraneševic (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) 6. The Category of the (Un)Touchable in Haptic Materialism: Touch, Repetition, and Language, Bara Kolenc (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) 7. The Lick of the Mother Tongue: Derrida’s Fantasies of ‘the Touch of Language’ with Augustine and Marx, Rachel Aumiller (University of Hamburg, Germany) 8. On the Touch of Swear Words: Swearing and the Lacanian Real, Peter Klepec 9. Proper Names: Being in Touch with the Real, Jela Krecic-Žižek (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) 10. Ethics of Touch: Doctor Who’s Untouchable Touch, Eva Vrtacic (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) 11. Screaming Contagions: The Scream as Haptic Contagion, Zack Sievers Index

Promotional Information

Examines the intersections of phenomenology, Marxism and poststructural linguistics to argue that the experience of touch is inextricable from the structure of language.

About the Author

Mirt Komel is Assistant Professor, Researcher and Chair of the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Reviews

The sense of touch has always been relegated to the second rank by the philosophical and cultural tradition, lagging far behind the more elevated senses of vision and hearing. Tides have changed with the path-breaking work particularly by Jean-Luc Nancy, Derrida and some others, but the proper ‘haptic turn’, in the echo of and in counterpoint to the decried ‘linguistic turn’, still has to be carried out and seen through. The present volume, bringing together the incisive and insightful research of a group of young Slovene theorists (including some ‘honorary Slovenes’), proposes a new and original take on one of the oldest questions: how do words touch things and how does touch inform and affect language? Haptolinguistics may well be the word that we will have to add to our vocabulary.
*Mladen Dolar, Professor of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia*

An intriguing and thought-provoking collection of essays. These compelling and original reflections invite us to think about language and the vicissitudes of matter in new and startling ways.
*Rebecca Comay, Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature, University of Toronto, Canada*