Lectures by Prof. Gavin Flood FBA

Phenomenology is one of the most important developments in philosophy in the twentieth century, and it has also had a deep impact on other theoretical fields more widely conceived. This seminar series seeks to engage with some of the fundamental concepts of phenomenology, and has turned in the past to thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, Peter Sloterdijk, Quentin Meillassoux, and others.This term we will be reading Anthony Steinbock's Phenomenology and Mysticism: The Verticality of Religious Experience.

Phenomenology is one of the most important developments in philosophy in the twentieth century, and it has also had a deep impact on other theoretical fields more widely conceived. This seminar series seeks to engage with some of the fundamental concepts of phenomenology, and has turned in the past to thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, Peter Sloterdijk, Quentin Meillassoux, and others.This term we will be reading Anthony Steinbock's Phenomenology and Mysticism: The Verticality of Religious Experience.

Phenomenology is one of the most important developments in philosophy in the twentieth century, and it has also had a deep impact on other theoretical fields more widely conceived. This seminar series seeks to engage with some of the fundamental concepts of phenomenology, and has turned in the past to thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, Peter Sloterdijk, Quentin Meillassoux, and others.This term we will be reading Anthony Steinbock's Phenomenology and Mysticism: The Verticality of Religious Experience.

Phenomenology is one of the most important developments in philosophy in the twentieth century, and it has also had a deep impact on other theoretical fields more widely conceived. This seminar series seeks to engage with some of the fundamental concepts of phenomenology, and has turned in the past to thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, Peter Sloterdijk, Quentin Meillassoux, and others.This term we will be reading Anthony Steinbock's Phenomenology and Mysticism: The Verticality of Religious Experience.

If understanding religion only in terms of system is problematic because it downplays the importance of person, then on one view, understanding religion in terms of person is to understand religion in terms of the political. This idea has been particularly developed in an interesting way by Giorgio Agamben in his notion of Homo sacer, the sacred man, who can be killed but not sacrificed. The lecture will explain Agamben’s ideas and offer critique through developing the notion of person as enacting holiness that needs to be grounded in the nature of the kind of being that the human is. This will entail beginning to develop an angle on the human that draws from the hard sciences.

This last lecture will attempt to draw together the themes and to develop the importance of human person in any account of religion. The lecture will present the argument of Claude Romano that phenomenology can allow us access to pre-linguistic experience, developing this idea for understanding religion and supporting a human centred approach, again with support from the harder sciences about human inter-faciality. This in turn leads to a reflection on the nature of religion in terms of intimacy, as a third space between the third person account of religion as system and the first person account of religion in terms of verticality or a distinctive kind of experience. Viewing religion in this way is simultaneously to develop a phenomenology of religion that places the human in the centre of inquiry, supported by the other sciences, and sets the scene for future inquiry into religion as it develops through what Helga Nowotny calls ‘the molecular age.’

The Netra Tantra is an important text that gained prominence in the early medieval (post-Gupta) period. These readings will focus on chapter seven, the sukṣma-dhyāna, using the oldest surviving manuscript from Nepal and making reference to the KSTS edition.

The Netra Tantra is an important text that gained prominence in the early medieval (post-Gupta) period. These readings will focus on chapter seven, the sukṣma-dhyāna, using the oldest surviving manuscript from Nepal and making reference to the KSTS edition.

The Netra Tantra is an important text that gained prominence in the early medieval (post-Gupta) period. These readings will focus on chapter seven, the sukṣma-dhyāna, using the oldest surviving manuscript from Nepal and making reference to the KSTS edition.

This term we will be reading Thiemo Breyer’s On the Topology of Cultural Memory: Different Modalities of Inscription and Transmission (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2007).In the wake of the large literature now developed on memory and particularly cultural memory, this book creates a topology of cultural memory, linking anthropological work with phenomenological reflection. Breyer looks at cultural memory, memory as occupying an inter-personal realm, memory in oral and literate cultures, and the philosophical implications of empirical study. I can photocopy relevant chapters.

This term we will be reading Thiemo Breyer’s On the Topology of Cultural Memory: Different Modalities of Inscription and Transmission (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2007).In the wake of the large literature now developed on memory and particularly cultural memory, this book creates a topology of cultural memory, linking anthropological work with phenomenological reflection. Breyer looks at cultural memory, memory as occupying an inter-personal realm, memory in oral and literate cultures, and the philosophical implications of empirical study. I can photocopy relevant chapters.

This term we will be reading Thiemo Breyer’s On the Topology of Cultural Memory: Different Modalities of Inscription and Transmission (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2007).In the wake of the large literature now developed on memory and particularly cultural memory, this book creates a topology of cultural memory, linking anthropological work with phenomenological reflection. Breyer looks at cultural memory, memory as occupying an inter-personal realm, memory in oral and literate cultures, and the philosophical implications of empirical study. I can photocopy relevant chapters.

This term we will be reading Thiemo Breyer’s On the Topology of Cultural Memory: Different Modalities of Inscription and Transmission (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2007).In the wake of the large literature now developed on memory and particularly cultural memory, this book creates a topology of cultural memory, linking anthropological work with phenomenological reflection. Breyer looks at cultural memory, memory as occupying an inter-personal realm, memory in oral and literate cultures, and the philosophical implications of empirical study. I can photocopy relevant chapters.