L.127.15480 French Existential Phenomenology: Life, Body, Action, Situation

Lehrende: Katja Cicigoj

Veranstaltungsart: Seminar

Orga-Einheit: Philosophie

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Unterrichtssprache: Englisch

Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl: - | 40

Literatur:
The seminar will focus upon secular French and francophone existential phenomenology. Readings will include the works of Henri Bergson (as a precursor), Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Simone de Beauvoir, Franz Fanon and Jean Paul Sartre. The full list of readings will be communicated at the beginning of the seminar.

Kommentar:
This seminar will take a look at the work of French and francophone authors of the 20th century who have developed a direction in phenomenology that is emphatically not centred around cognition. Beyond individual consciousness, they put notions such as life, the body and the other centre stage and develop philosophies that aim to consider human existence, action and relations in concrete, historically and socially formed situations. Some have also emphasised and theorised the major significance that sex, gender, race, age, or class have for how one apprehends the world and acts in it. They have thus produced some of the most influential works of 20th century European philosophy, which had a major impact upon the development of feminist philosophy, gender studies, the philosophy of race, and postcolonial theory, as well as presenting original perspectives in political philosophy and philosophical ethics. They also arguably anticipated the crossroads between phenomenology and critical theory that in recent scholarship is sometimes called critical phenomenology.

In the seminar we will study this direction of French existential philosophy and phenomenology with a view to its specific contributions to a critical social philosophy. Does a phenomenological and existential perspective bring something unique to social and political philosophy? Are its starting assumptions of universal structures of human existence fundamentally in tension with its consideration of embodiment and social situations? Is this tension irresolvable – or is it rather, perhaps, itself constitutive of embodied human existence?

The working language of the seminar is English. Perfect command of the language is however not required, and the level of language proficiency will not be part of the assessment. A basic capacity to read texts and communicate in English is sufficient.