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Late Modernity in Crisis / Spätmoderne in der Krise
Why We Need a Theory of Society
»Social theory, as I understand it here, is not a normative social philosophy with a utopian horizon.« Andreas Reckwitz
»The best possible interpretation of the critical situation of a historical formation must at least generate utopian horizons for shaping the future.« Hartmut Rosa
»The best possible interpretation of the critical situation of a historical formation must at least generate utopian horizons for shaping the future.« Hartmut Rosa
In times of profound social upheavals and manifest crises, there is a need for fundamental analyses that take a look at contemporary society as a whole, examine its structural features and dynamics and potentially even reveal ways out of critical developments. In recent years, Andreas Reckwitz and Hartmut Rosa have presented large-scale but very differently accentuated theories of society, which play an important role in shaping the current debates on late modernity. In this joint...
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In times of profound social upheavals and manifest crises, there is a need for fundamental analyses that take a look at contemporary society as a whole, examine its structural features and dynamics and potentially even reveal ways out of critical developments. In recent years, Andreas Reckwitz and Hartmut Rosa have presented large-scale but very differently accentuated theories of society, which play an important role in shaping the current debates on late modernity. In this joint venture, they now enter into a critical dialogue.
Based on the shared concern that the analysis of modernity as a social formation belongs at the centre of a sociology that takes seriously its task of enlightening society about itself, they first unfold their own socio-theoretical perspectives in extensive essays: while Reckwitz chooses »social practices«, »contingency« and »singularisation« as guiding concepts, Rosa opts for »acceleration«, »increase« and »resonance«. In the second part of the book, they consolidate their positions even more, work out commonalities, but also point out fundamental differences – in a frank conversation moderated by Martin Bauer.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I
Andreas Reckwitz – The Theory of Society as a Tool
1. Doing Theory
2. Practice theory as Social Theory
3. The Practice of Modernity
4. The Theory of Society at Work: From Bourgeois and Industrial Modernity to Late Modernity
5. Theory as Critical Analytics
6. Coda: The Experimentalism of Theory
Part II
Hartmut Rosa – Best Account: Outlining a Systematic Theory of Modern Society
1. What Is a Theory of Society and What Can It Do?
2. Dynamic Stabilization and the Expansion of Our Share of the World: An Analysis of the Modern Social Formation
3. Desynchronization and Alienation: A Diagnosis and Critique of Modernity
4. Adaptive Stabilization and Resonance: A Therapeutic and Transgressive Outline of an Alternative Horizon
Part III
Modernity and Critique: A Conversation with Martin Bauer
Notes
»For those of us who think that the big picture matters and not just information, empirical data, and small narratives, this book is good news. Two prominent sociologists, each in their own way and both with rigor and erudition, take up the question on the minds of many: What sort of society are we really living in? In what direction are our societies headed? A major contribution to the revitalization of interest in a comprehensive theory of modernity.« Miroslav Volf, Yale University
»[The book] presents even to readers from the ›non-scientific public‹ the possibility of a sociological view of sociology itself: What do the methods, the concepts, the presuppositions, the language it chooses reveal about the time in which it originates – and in which we all live?« Mark Siemons, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
»Andreas Reckwitz and Hartmut Rosa sketch the outlines of a contemporary social theory.« Ulrike Baureithel, Der Tagesspiegel
»What makes the essays as well as the conversation productive is the experimental manner in which the authors of two different approaches to social theory correlate.« Harry Nutt, Berliner Zeitung
»In a way, two diverging sociological temperaments meet in [Late Modernity in Crisis] … But what they have in common is the readiness to unfold socio-theoretical categories that actually attempt to grasp the entirety of our present in sociological terms.« Martin Hartmann, Soziopolis
»Anyone who wishes to understand our time should definitely read Andreas Reckwitz.« Deutschlandfunk Kultur on Die Gesellschaft der Singularitäten
»A must-read!« DIE ZEIT on Resonanz
»[The book] presents even to readers from the ›non-scientific public‹ the possibility of a sociological view of sociology itself: What do the methods, the concepts, the presuppositions, the language it chooses reveal about the time in which it originates – and in which we all live?« Mark Siemons, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
»Andreas Reckwitz and Hartmut Rosa sketch the outlines of a contemporary social theory.« Ulrike Baureithel, Der Tagesspiegel
»What makes the essays as well as the conversation productive is the experimental manner in which the authors of two different approaches to social theory correlate.« Harry Nutt, Berliner Zeitung
»In a way, two diverging sociological temperaments meet in [Late Modernity in Crisis] … But what they have in common is the readiness to unfold socio-theoretical categories that actually attempt to grasp the entirety of our present in sociological terms.« Martin Hartmann, Soziopolis
»Anyone who wishes to understand our time should definitely read Andreas Reckwitz.« Deutschlandfunk Kultur on Die Gesellschaft der Singularitäten
»A must-read!« DIE ZEIT on Resonanz
»For those of us who think that the big picture matters and not just information, empirical data, and small narratives, this book is good news. Two prominent sociologists, each in their own way and both with rigor and erudition, take up the question on the minds of many: What sort of society are we really living in? In what direction are our societies headed? A major contribution to the revitalization of interest in a comprehensive theory of modernity.« Miroslav Volf, Yale...
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2021, 310 pages
Persons
Andreas Reckwitz
Author
Andreas Reckwitz, born in 1970, is professor of Social Theory and Cultural Sociology at the Humboldt University of Berlin. His 2017 book Die Gesellschaft der Singularitäten was nominated for the Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair and awarded the Bayrischer Buchpreis. He was awarded the Leibniz Prize in 2019 and was a Fellow at the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles in 2022.
Andreas Reckwitz
Author
Andreas Reckwitz, born in 1970, is professor of Social Theory and Cultural Sociology at the Humboldt University of Berlin. His 2017 book Die...
© Jürgen Bauer
Hartmut Rosa
Author
Hartmut Rosa, born in 1965, is professor of General and Theoretical Sociology at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and director of the Max Weber Center for Advanced Studies in Erfurt. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Tractatus Prize, the Erich Fromm Prize and the Leibniz Prize.
Hartmut Rosa
Author
Hartmut Rosa, born in 1965, is professor of General and Theoretical Sociology at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and director of the Max Weber...
© Jürgen Bauer
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Latest first
Year of Publication: 2025
Hartmut RosaYear of Publication: 2025
Situation and Constellation
The teacher who can’t give marks for encouragement, the doctor who treats screens instead of patients, the football referee whose judgment is squeezed out by VAR: imperceptibly, the character of...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Polity), Brazilian Portuguese rights (UNESP), France (La Découverte), Denmark (Eksistensen), Sweden (Daidalos)
Domestic rights sales: German Audiobook (CC Live)
Year of Publication: 2024
Andreas ReckwitzYear of Publication: 2024
Loss
Contemporary society is marked by forms of loss in manifold ways: from the effects of climate change to the protest movements of those who have lost out in the process of modernisation, from the...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Polity), Chinese simplex rights (Shanghai People's Publishing House), Italy (LUISS), Netherlands (Boom), Denmark (Reitzels), Sweden (Daidalos), Korea (Saemulgyul), Hungary (Gondolat)
Year of Publication: 2019
Andreas ReckwitzYear of Publication: 2019
The End of Illusions
Up until just a few years ago, Western societies seemed to be moving forward in the assumed certainty of social progress: the worldwide triumph of democracy and the market economy seemed...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Polity), Spanish world rights (Nola), Chinese simplex rights (Social Sciences Academic Press), France (MSH), Denmark (Reitzels), Norway (Cappelen Damm Akademisk), Korea (Saemulgyul), Japan (Jimbun Shoin), Croatia (TIM Press), Turkey (Kültür Yayinlari), Greece (Alexandria)
Year of Publication: 2017
Andreas ReckwitzYear of Publication: 2017
The Society of Singularities
The particular is the clincher and the unique is prized while the general and the standardised remain, on the contrary, rather unattractive. The average person with his or her average life...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Polity), Spanish world rights (Katz), Chinese simplex rights (Social Sciences Academic Press), Chinese complex rights (Business Weekly Publications), Russia (Directmedia), Brazilian Portuguese rights (ContraCorrente), Arabic world rights (Sefsafa), France (MSH), Italy (Meltemi), Denmark (Reitzels), Korea (Saemulgyul), Japan (Iwanami Shoten), Czech Republic (Nakladatelství Filosofia Filosofického), Hungary (Gondolat), Bulgaria (KX – Critique and Humanism), Slovenia (Krtina)
Year of Publication: 2016
Hartmut RosaYear of Publication: 2016
Resonance
If acceleration is the problem, then perhaps resonance is the solution. This, in the briefest possible terms, is the central thesis of Hartmut Rosa’s latest book, which can be seen as the...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Polity), Spanish world rights (Katz Editores), Chinese simplex rights (Shanghai People’s Publishing House), France (La Découverte), Italy (Cortina), Denmark (Eksistensen), Japan (Shinsensha), Turkey (Albaraka)
Year of Publication: 2013
Hartmut RosaYear of Publication: 2013
Acceleration and Alienation
»This book is a short essay on modern life. It strives to ask the ›right‹ sorts of questions that would allow social philosophy and sociology to speak to the everyday reality...
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Spanish world rights (Katz), Chinese simplex rights (Shanghai People's Publishing House), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Editora Vozes), France (Découverte), Italy (Einaudi), Netherlands (Boom), Denmark (Reitzels), Korea (Academy of Mobility Humanities / LPBook Publishing), Romania (Idea), Turkey (Albaraka), Greece (Lykabettus Editions / Michail Koulouras Sole Proprietorship)
English edition available through Aarhus UP
Year of Publication: 2012
Andreas ReckwitzYear of Publication: 2012
The Invention of Creativity
Be creative! In today’s society the pressure and the desire to be creative and to produce ever newer things is extraordinarily widespread.
What was once reserved...
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English world rights (Polity), Spanish world rights (Catarata), Chinese simplex rights (Shanghai People's Publishing House), France (Presses du réel), Italy (Quodlibet), Denmark (Reitzels), Korea (Saemulgyul)
Previously published in the respective language/territory; rights available again: Poland (National Centre for Culture)
Year of Publication: 2012
Hartmut RosaYear of Publication: 2012
Global Relationships in the Age of Acceleration
After Hartmut Rosa’s widely noted and successful Beschleunigung. Die Veränderung der Zeitstrukturen in der Moderne, his new work analyzes from various perspectives how the acceleration of ...
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Sweden (Daidalos), Serbia (Akademska Knjiga)
Year of Publication: 2005
Hartmut RosaYear of Publication: 2005
Acceleration
Acceleration is a key term of modernity and »deceleration« a fashionable contemporary term. Both form part of a social development that has had a lasting impact on the last...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Columbia UP), Spanish world rights (Herder México), Chinese simplex rights (Shanghai People’s Publishing House), Brazilian Portuguese rights (UNESP), Arabic world rights (BookClub Publications), France (La Decouverte), Japan (Fukumura Shuppan), Bulgaria (Critique & Humanism)
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