The Golden Age of Phenomenology at the New School for Social Research, 1954–1973

Lester Embree · Michael D. Barber

Sep 2017 · Series in Continental Thought Book 42 · Ohio University Press

About this ebook

This collection focuses on the introduction of phenomenology to the United States by the community of scholars who taught and studied at the New School for Social Research from 1954 through 1973. During those years, Dorion Cairns, Alfred Schutz, and Aron Gurwitsch—all former students of Edmund Husserl—came together in the department of philosophy to establish the first locus of phenomenology scholarship in the country. This founding trio was soon joined by three other prominent scholars in the field: Werner Marx, Thomas M. Seebohm, and J. N. Mohanty. The Husserlian phenomenology that they brought to the New School has subsequently spread through the Anglophone world as the tradition of Continental philosophy.

The first part of this volume includes original works by each of these six influential teachers of phenomenology, introduced either by one of their students or, in the case of Seebohm and Mohanty, by the thinkers themselves. The second part comprises contributions from twelve leading scholars of phenomenology who trained at the New School during this period. The result is a powerful document tracing the lineage and development of phenomenology in the North American context, written by members of the first two generations of scholars who shaped the field.

Contributors: Michael Barber, Lester Embree, Jorge García-Gómez, Fred Kersten, Thomas M. T. Luckmann, William McKenna, J. N. Mohanty, Giuseppina C. Moneta, Thomas Nenon, George Psathas, Osborne P. Wiggins, Matthew M. Seebohm, and Richard M. Zaner.

About the author

Lester Embree was William F. Dietrich Eminent Scholar in Philosophy at Florida Atlantic University. He was a founder and, later, president of the Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology and is the author of five books, most recently Schutzian Theory of the Cultural Sciences, as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. He died in 2017.

Michael D. Barber is dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and professor of philosophy at St. Louis University. He is the author of several books on the phenomenology of the social world, his most recent being The Participating Citizen: A Biography of Alfred Schutz.