Phenomenology

Catalog description

This course introduces students to phenomenology. Considered by many to be the most important theoretical movement of the 20th-Century, phenomenology is both a philosophical tradition and a method. From its founder Edmund Husserl to authors like Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Derrida, and Levinas, to more recent voices in broader gender and race discussions, phenomenology still has significant influence today in existentialism, hermeneutics, and deconstruction. Students will engage in questions such as these: What is phenomenology? How is it practiced? What distinguishes this method from other approaches? What are its key contributions?