ABSTRACT

Phenomenology has primarily been concerned with conceptual questions about knowledge and ontology. However, in recent years, the rise of interest and research in applied phenomenology has seen the study of political phenomenology move to a central place in the study of phenomenology generally.

The Routledge Handbook of Political Phenomenology is the first major collection on this important topic. Comprising 35 chapters by an international team of expert contributors, the handbook is organized into six clear parts, each with its own introduction by the editors:

  • Founders of Phenomenology
  • Existentialist Phenomenology
  • Phenomenology of the Social and Political World
  • Phenomenology of Alterity
  • Phenomenology in Debate
  • Contemporary Developments.

Full attention is given to central figures in the phenomenological movement, including Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Levinas, as well as those whose contribution to political phenomenology is more distinctive, such as Arendt, De Beauvoir, and Fanon. Also included are chapters on gender, race and intersectionality, disability, and technology.

Ideal for those studying phenomenology, continental philosophy, and political theory, The Routledge Handbook of Political Phenomenology bridges an important gap between a major philosophical movement and contemporary political issues and concepts.

part I|56 pages

Founders of Phenomenology

chapter |7 pages

Introduction to Part I

Plural Beginnings, Ambivalent Heritage

chapter 1|12 pages

Edmund Husserl

Idealistic Politics and Communal Spirit

chapter 2|11 pages

Max Scheler

The Politics of Ressentiment

chapter 3|11 pages

Martin Heidegger

Destiny, Founding, and Being

chapter 4|13 pages

Context

Community, State, and Law in Times of Crisis

part II|82 pages

Existentialist Phenomenology

chapter |6 pages

Introduction to Part II

Politicizing Phenomenology in the Struggle With Colonialism, National Socialism, and Stalinism

chapter 5|13 pages

Jean-Paul Sartre

On the Many Senses of the Political

chapter 6|11 pages

Simone de Beauvoir

Encroachment, Agency, Embodiment

chapter 7|11 pages

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Contingency, Conflict, and Coexistence

chapter 8|12 pages

Trần Đức Thảo

Practicing Phenomenology Through Anticolonialism, Dialectical Materialism, and Socialism

chapter 9|14 pages

Frantz Fanon

Anticolonial Phenomenology, Refusal, and the Question of Method

chapter 10|13 pages

Context

From Existential Marxism to Post-Marxism

part III|66 pages

Phenomenology of the Social and Political World

chapter |7 pages

Introduction to Part III

Phenomenology of the Social and Political World

chapter 11|11 pages

Alfred Schütz

Imposed Political Relevances and the Subjective Meaning of the Actor

chapter 12|13 pages

Günther Anders

Technology, Antiquatedness, and Apocalypse

chapter 13|11 pages

Hannah Arendt: Plurality, Worldliness, and Action

Inverting the Image of Totalitarianism

chapter 14|12 pages

Jan Patočka

Heresies, History, and the Care for the Soul in Its Political Aspects

chapter 15|10 pages

Context

Between Individualism and Totalitarianism

part IV|77 pages

Phenomenology of Alterity

chapter |8 pages

Introduction to Part IV

From the Primacy of the Other to the Politics of Alterity

chapter 16|12 pages

Emmanuel Levinas

The Politics of Alterity

chapter 17|12 pages

Paul Ricœur

The Political Through the Lens of Oneself as Another

chapter 18|10 pages

Luce Irigaray

The Politics of Sexual Difference as Anontological Difference

chapter 19|12 pages

Jacques Derrida: Deconstruction

Through Phenomenology to the Political

chapter 20|10 pages

Bernhard Waldenfels

Responsive Phenomenology of the Political

chapter 21|11 pages

Context

Philosophies of Dialogue and Psychoanalytic Thought: The Impossibility of Thinking ‘I’ Without the Other

part V|57 pages

Phenomenology in Debate

chapter |7 pages

Introduction to Part V

Phenomenology in Debate: Criticism, Cooperation, Inspiration

chapter 23|12 pages

Phenomenology and the Early Marx

Italian Phenomarxism and the Yugoslav Praxis Group

chapter 24|12 pages

Phenomenology and Queer Theory

part VI|134 pages

Contemporary Developments

chapter |9 pages

Introduction to Part VI

Situating Contemporary Phenomenology

chapter 26|12 pages

Feminism and Gender

chapter 27|12 pages

Race

chapter 28|14 pages

Intersectionality 1

chapter 29|12 pages

White Ignorance

chapter 31|11 pages

Migration

chapter 33|12 pages

Affects and Emotions

chapter 34|9 pages

Technology and the Digital World

chapter 35|14 pages

Ecology and the Environment