Course Introduction to Classical and Critical Phenomenology

Course description

The course introduces the students to the basic concepts in classical and critical phenomenology. The course is interdisciplinary in nature drawing mainly from the philosophical and anthropological developments in classical and critical phenomenology, and it is open to all students who work phenomenologically. The course is hence an introductory course and not an advanced course in phenomenology.

The course consists of three full days of lectures and one follow-up online session with student presentations for those who sign up this.

The lectures will be organized in 7 themes, which all engage both classical and critical phenomenology:

1. The Basics: In an informal dialogical way, we approach the basics of phenomenology and sketch a general map of the terrain from classical to critical phenomenology.
2. Phenomenological methods and analysis 1: This lecture introduces to the methods of classical phenomenology and raises the question of how and why authors in critical phenomenology argue that methods must be revised. This will also bring in notions of subjectivity and Dasein and such distinctions as empirical vs. transcendental and ontic vs. ontological.
3. Intersubjectivity and the Other: This lecture gives an introduction to the role of intersubjectivity and sociality in phenomenology and newer social ontology. We will explore how different social relations become experientially salient and cover concepts such as as empathy, being-with, and collective intentionality.
4. World and Earth: This lecture explores what the notion of world means in phenomenology and what work the term does in phenomenological analysis. We will touch on the Heideggerian concepts of the worldhood of the world and the Husserlian lifeworld. Further, we will consider the relationship between place and world and how phenomenology might help raise questions of Earthly dwelling in the shadows of ecological crisis.
5. Embodiment and Intercorporeality: The lived body has played a fundamental role in phenomenology since Husserl. This lecture introduces to the dual aspectivity of body (Leib/Körper) and focusses on how body can be said to anchor existence in the world, and how the habituated body opens the world in meaningful ways. From here we raise questions of normality and abnormality, of bodily differences, and of illness and health.
6. Critique and Potentiality: What is phenomenological critique? Whence does this kind of critical endeavor draw its critical force? This lecture sketches the various ways that the criticality of phenomenology has been conceived. In the context of newer critical phenomenology, we will notably trace a distinction between ways of doing critique that relies on critical theoretical or Foucauldian frameworks and more ethnographic versions of critical phenomenology that relies on the critical force of experience itself.
7. Phenomenological methods and analysis 2: In this final session, we focus on how phenomenological methods and concepts can be put to work in experience-near contexts. This session will be organized as a workshop, where the students get to discuss their own work in light of the discussions we have had the previous days.

Aim/Learning outcomes

•  Knowledge of the basic concepts in classical phenomenology
• Knowledge of the basic concepts in critical phenomenology
• Knowledge of the development of critical phenomenology in both philosophy and anthropology
• Knowledge of the fault lines between classical and critical phenomenology
• Skills in reading and interpreting the primary literature
• Skills in doing phenomenological analysis on own material Competencies for developing a phenomenology approach in own project.

Participation options

• You can choose to participate with presentation (3,5 ECTS credit) or without presentation (2 ECTS credit)

Target group/Participants

• PhD students with a limited knowledge of phenomenology from anthropology, philosophy, theology, religious studies, social sciences, nursing studies and similar fields.

Language 

• English

Lecturers

• Cheryl Mattingly
• Rasmus Dyring
• Thomas Schwarz Wentzer
• Nicolai Krejberg Knudsen
• Maria E. Louw 

Literature

• Literature will be announced and distributed later

Venue - TBA

Course dates:

• 27 August 2025 09:00 - 17:00
• 28 August 2025 09:00 - 16:00
• 29 August 2025 09:00 - 16:00
• 09 September 2025 09:00 - 15:00