Sharing and propagating a cultural world

Workshop on the sharing and propagation of a cultural world

The workshop is open to all and all are welcome.

14.15 - 15.30: Michael Schnegg (Anthropology, University of Hamburg), "Emanating bodies: Towards a comparative phenomenology."

The aim of this presentation is to explore how ethnographic material can be mobilized to advance phenomenological concepts. To do this, I take Tellenbach's (1968) notion of atmospheres as a starting point. As he suggests, Damara people in Namibia experience each other as bodies that emanate winds (ǂoan). Building on the ethnographic case, I show that this is not unusual and that we find ample cross-cultural evidence that this is part of how people experience each other bodily. To explore this further, I introduce a comparative methodology that combines a Husserlian idea of Wesensschau through eidetic variation with mathematical tools, namely formal concept analysis, to conduct an ethnographic Wesensschau empirically. The significant advantage of formal concept analysis is that it avoids simplistic essentializations and allows for different degrees and combinations in which the characteristics of a phenomenon are shared. In the end, the analysis indicates what the cross-cultural nature of bodily emanations is and what subtypes exist.

15.45-17.00: Andrew Inkpin (Philosophy, University of Melbourne), "Merleau-Ponty on painting, sedimentation, and the cultural world."