JBSP Online: Book review – Fifty Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology (edited collection)

journal update

Charles des Portes’ JBSP review of Fifty Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology, published online in advance of the paper edition.

Charles des Portes – Book Review: ‘Fifty Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology edited by Gail Weiss, Ann V. Murphy and Gayle Salamon’ [Evanston, IL, Northwestern University Press, 2020]. (Review originally published online: 12 March 2020).

Opening paragraph: Even if phenomenology is commonly described as the analysis of the structures of experience, its “most axiomatic methodological commitment is the refusal to accept the taken-for-grantedness of experience” (p. xiii). This exigency is illustrated and confirmed by Fifty Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology as a twofold project: first, an actualization of classic concepts in the history of phenomenology according to feminist or critical race theory; second, an actualization of concepts from these fields by phenomenology. Thus, critical phenomenology is committed to an epistemological critique both of phenomenology and of other academic fields such as gender or disability studies. This intention is reflected in the list of contributors whose background is in phenomenology, like Alia Al-Saji and Helen A. Fielding, while others, like Patricia Hill Collins, come from a social science background.

Full article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00071773.2020.1741151

Charles des Portes, University of Leeds, UK

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