Looking for phenomenology reading suggestions

[Mattie Roh]

So I spent the summer reading a lot of theory and the work that particularly piqued my interest seemed to be grounded in phenomenology. I had only a brief introduction to the theory years ago in an intro to theory graduate course and had forgotten about it, but now it seems like it might fit in well with my current research and I want to read deeper. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you view it) there are a million books on phenomenology and many veer into the more political (i.e. existentialism) or philosophical. Can anyone suggest an essay collection focusing on phenomenology in literature that they found particularly interesting?

[bhr]

I don't have a lit suggestion, but I always tell people to start with Bogost's Alien Phenomenology. It's sitting on my desk among my first grabs along with Jenkins, Gee and Klosterman,

[Metaellipses]

If you're interested in phenomenology, it's important, in my opinion, to be aware of the philosophical tradition that literary work on phenomenology has been engaged with. I'd probably start with Husserl's Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, and then move on to Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception. Merleau-Ponty is responding to Husserl's transcendental phenomenology and adapting it in interesting ways, and his new model has been an important critical resource for work across the disciplines. Much contemporary work on phenomenology is implicitly or explicitly engaging with Merleau-Ponty's formulations. For contemporary work that is more literary, it really varies by period. Across periods, I'd recommend Sarah Ahmed's Queer Phenomenology. In the early modern period, Bruce Smith has done work on phenomenology and Shakespeare and Erika Lin's work is implicitly phenomenological. There's also been a critical turn in the new materialism away from anthropocentric phenomenologies which N. Katherine Hayles is sort of on the cusp of. The new materialism is, in many ways, a complete retooling of phenomenology and has also been opposed to traditional phenomenology (see Post-Phenomenology, Speculative Realism, and work done by Karen Barad and Bogost). There's also a whole lot of work on phenomenology and spatial practice (which is the focus of my work). Christopher Tilley, Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja, Kevin Lynch, Yi-Fu Tuan, and Gaston Bachelard are in this vein.

Hope this helps!

Edited October 10, 2015 by Metaellipses
clarification

[Between Fields]

We're doing phenomenology (sigh) in my literature seminar right now.  She's having us read Martin Heidegger, Jean-Uale Sartre, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel levinas, Julia Kristeva, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Wilhelm Dilthey and Paul Recoeur, though those last two are interested more in hermeneutics.

[haltheincandescent]

If you're interested in phenomenology, it's important, in my opinion, to be aware of the philosophical tradition that literary work on phenomenology has been engaged with. I'd probably start with Husserl's Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, and then move on to Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception. Merleau-Ponty is responding to Husserl's transcendental phenomenology and adapting it in interesting ways, and his new model has been an important critical resource for work across the disciplines. Much contemporary work on phenomenology is implicitly or explicitly engaging with Merleau-Ponty's formulations. For contemporary work that is more literary, it really varies by period. Across periods, I'd recommend Sarah Ahmed's Queer Phenomenology. In the early modern period, Bruce Smith has done work on phenomenology and Shakespeare and Erika Lin's work is implicitly phenomenological. There's also been a critical turn in the new materialism away from anthropocentric phenomenologies which N. Katherine Hayles is sort of on the cusp of. The new materialism is, in many ways, a complete retooling of phenomenology and has also been opposed to traditional phenomenology (see Post-Phenomenology, Speculative Realism, and work done by Karen Barad and Bogost). There's also a whole lot of work on phenomenology and spatial practice (which is the focus of my work). Christopher Tilley, Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja, Kevin Lynch, Yi-Fu Tuan, and Gaston Bachelard are in this vein.

Hope this helps!

This is fantastic! A lot of my work so far has also focused on spatial practice, so I second Lefebre, Soja, Tuan, and Bachelard (esp. The Poetics of Space. Just a lovely read alone). But I've also been trying to pick up a better foundation in phenomemology more generally, so thanks for pointers of where to start and where to then go from there!

[Mattie Roh]

If you're interested in phenomenology, it's important, in my opinion, to be aware of the philosophical tradition that literary work on phenomenology has been engaged with. I'd probably start with Husserl's Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, and then move on to Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception. Merleau-Ponty is responding to Husserl's transcendental phenomenology and adapting it in interesting ways, and his new model has been an important critical resource for work across the disciplines. Much contemporary work on phenomenology is implicitly or explicitly engaging with Merleau-Ponty's formulations. For contemporary work that is more literary, it really varies by period. Across periods, I'd recommend Sarah Ahmed's Queer Phenomenology. In the early modern period, Bruce Smith has done work on phenomenology and Shakespeare and Erika Lin's work is implicitly phenomenological. There's also been a critical turn in the new materialism away from anthropocentric phenomenologies which N. Katherine Hayles is sort of on the cusp of. The new materialism is, in many ways, a complete retooling of phenomenology and has also been opposed to traditional phenomenology (see Post-Phenomenology, Speculative Realism, and work done by Karen Barad and Bogost). There's also a whole lot of work on phenomenology and spatial practice (which is the focus of my work). Christopher Tilley, Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja, Kevin Lynch, Yi-Fu Tuan, and Gaston Bachelard are in this vein.

Hope this helps!

Fantastic! Thanks for the suggestions