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 9 themes, which all engage both classical and critical phenomenology. Aside from this we will have some shorter masterclasses, where the teachers give examples of their own work with phenomenology. Throughout the course, we will groupwork and expect active participation. The themes are:

1. What is Phenomenology? 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: 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: 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 empathy, being-with, and collective intentionality.
4. World: 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. Care: This lecture introduces the ways care and ethics have been central themes in the phenomenological movement. Care has been conceived variously as care for the self, care for others and care for the world. We will survey such understandings and discuss how there arises a normativity from co-existence itself and how it is phenomenologically experienced.
6. Embodiment: 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.
7. Atmospheres: With the focus on embodiment and spatiality in phenomenology, the question of how one finds oneself in space has also been central since the inception of the phenomenological movement. In this picture we examine different ways this question has been pursued by discussion such notions as atmospheres, moods and affects. We will furthermore connect such notions with current questions in the research into the climate crisis and the way this crisis affects how we find ourselves in the world.
8. Critique: 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.
9. Imagistic Phenomenology: In recent years, the term imagistic thinking has been proposed as a ways of doing phenomenology in experience-near settings. Imagistic thinking is a way thinking in images (both literally and metaphorically) where images are not representational, but always haunted by potential.

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.

Target group/Participants

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

Workload

• Course/ teaching hours: 27
• Preparation hours: approx. 60
• Written assignments etc.:

Language 

• English

Lecturers

• Cheryl Mattingly, Prof. of Anthropology, Aarhus University/University of Southern California
• Rasmus Dyring, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Aarhus University
• Michael Schnegg, Professor of Anthropology, University of Hamburg
• Anne Marie Pahuus, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Aarhus University
• Maria Louw, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Aarhus University
• Thomas Schwarz Wentzer, professor of Philosophy, Aarhus University
• Nicolai Krejberg Knudsen, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Aarhus University

Literature

• To be distributed after the application deadline.

Venue

• 23 June 2026. 12.30-17.00. Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4 , 8000 Aarhus C. Building 1483, room 454
• 24 June 2026. 09.00-17.00. Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4 , 8000 Aarhus C. Building 1483, room 454
• 24 June 2026. 09.00-17.00. Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4 , 8000 Aarhus C. Building 1483, room 454
• 26 June 2026. 09.00-15.30. Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4 , 8000 Aarhus C. Building 1483, room 454

Course dates:

• 23 June 2026 12:30 - 17:00
• 24 June 2026 09:00 - 17:00
• 25 June 2026 09:00 - 17:00
• 26 June 2026 09:00 - 15:30