Sensitive subjects

Abstract

touch. The Language of Touch contains an incredibly rich (but certainly not easily accessible) conceptualization of Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytical works; Aristotle, Heidegger, or Derrida’s philosophies; and the structural linguistics of Saussure and Jacobson. Therefore, this range of reference will pose challenges to readers with varying academic training. An alternative route of reading could be suggested for readers with less grounding in some of these disciplines: After reading the introductory theoretical chapter, a temporal jump to the second part of the book (containing the case studies) would enable readers to grasp the theoretical problems explained through specific examples prior to reading the rest of the early theoretical chapters. To conclude the review, the significant outcome of the book ́s reading is twofold. Firstly, classical Lacan linguistics is radically reconceptualized as the gaze and the voices as the sources of desire are challenged by the rethinking of touch. Secondly, the collection brings even broader contribution to haptic studies by opening the position of touch as not only a culturally/linguistically molded sensual modality but as something more constitutively connected to it by pressing the question of “how touch structure language.” Through this book, touch creatively pushes back on cultural and linguistical conceptualizations of touch as it opens innovative and unforeseeable ways to challenge them.