Phenomenology as a Queer Method – Registration open for BSP Online Course

Phenomenology as a Queer Method

Course Leader: Dr Nikolaas Cassidy-Deketelaere (KU Leuven)

Dates: 3 / 10 / 17 / 24 April 2024

Time: 5:30-7:00pm (BST)

Location: Online (Zoom)

Phenomenology and queer theory, as a form of critical theory, are generally considered to be entirely distinct styles of thinking, if not straightforwardly opposed in their presuppositions and aims. However, this course will explore how—much to the contrary—phenomenology should instead be considered as an inherently queer method.

After all, characterised by the so-called ‘reduction of the natural attitude’, it exists precisely in what we could call the ‘bracketing of (hetero)normativity’. To that end, we will first consider how the project of a ‘queer phenomenology’ can be conceived in a properly methodological sense, distinguishing it from a limited phenomenology of sexuality or gender. Second, we will critically discuss contemporary phenomenological forms of heteronormativity, particularly in France, in order to illustrate how heteronormativity is not simply a political but a distinctly methodological—and thus phenomenological—problem. Third, we turn to Husserl in order to conceive of the reduction as an inherently queer category. Finally, we will apply the phenomenological insights thus acquired to the specific experience of AIDS in order to show how the queer perspective can serve the phenomenological method in general, specifically by providing the opportunity for integrating both love and embodiment into Heidegger’s existential ontology.

Find out some more about BSP2024OC2: Phenomenology as a Queer Method