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Situation and Constellation / Situation und Konstellation
On the Disappearance of Human Agency
A major new monograph from one of the German-speaking world's most influential sociologists
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 human agency within contemporary society is changing. Particularly in our professional lives – but increasingly also in our leisure time – our decision-making is prescribed in advance by guidelines and forms, algorithms and apps, right down to the smallest of details. The role of situational, sensitive...
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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 human agency within contemporary society is changing. Particularly in our professional lives – but increasingly also in our leisure time – our decision-making is prescribed in advance by guidelines and forms, algorithms and apps, right down to the smallest of details. The role of situational, sensitive consideration and judgment is being replaced by the constellation-based machine logic of execution, which we wield on a daily basis. »Agree«/»Reject« – this is how agents of action turn into executioners of actions.
And as much as this development might serve the goals of equality and transparency, it comes at a high price, which Hartmut Rosa vividly unpacks in this new eye-opening work. Because when spheres of discretion and judgment disappear and the creativity of human agency is eliminated from everyday practices of execution, we feel an increased sense of powerlessness. And as our power of judgment dwindles, so does our energy to act. But how can we work to counter this individual and collective loss of energy within society? We can do so, argues Rosa, by strengthening human agency on all planes of social existence.
And as much as this development might serve the goals of equality and transparency, it comes at a high price, which Hartmut Rosa vividly unpacks in this new eye-opening work. Because when spheres of discretion and judgment disappear and the creativity of human agency is eliminated from everyday practices of execution, we feel an increased sense of powerlessness. And as our power of judgment dwindles, so does our energy to act. But how can we work to counter this individual and collective loss of energy within society? We can do so, argues Rosa, by strengthening human agency on all planes of social existence.
»Hartmut Rosa is a master of analysing modern dynamics of alienation.« Svenja Flaßpöhler, Philosophie Magazin
»Hartmut Rosa is a master of analysing modern dynamics of alienation.« Svenja Flaßpöhler, Philosophie Magazin
2025, 200 pages
Persons
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...
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OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Latest first
Year of Publication: 2021
Andreas Reckwitz, Hartmut RosaYear of Publication: 2021
Late Modernity in Crisis
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...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Polity), Spanish world rights (NED Ediciones), Chinese simplex rights (Shanghai People’s Publishing House), Chinese complex rights (Wu-Nan), France (MSH), Denmark (Reitzels), Korea (Saemulgyul), Greece (Propobos)
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
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)