Next meeting 5 June 5pm: 
 Benjamin, 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"

We will read Benjamin's article 'The work of art" for our next meeting. Text sources: 

English translation: in Benjamin, Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken, 1968, pp. 217–251. 

German original: "Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit" is in Walter Benjamin, Illuminationen. Ausgewählte Schriften, vol. 1 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1977), pp. 136-169; also in: W. B., Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit..... Mit Ergänzungen aus der ersten und zweiten Fassung, ed. B. Lindner (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2018) 

If you wish to receive further information please let Alex know (alex.samely@manchester.ac.uk).

 Walter Benjamin's 'Theses on the Philosophy of History'

 Meeting 22 May 5pm by zoom

We are discussing Benjamin's 'Theses' in light of our recent reading of Husserl's 'Origin of Geometry' and Derrida's response to it. 

Probably the most accessible English translation is in Benjamin, Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken, 1968), pp. 253–264.

The equivalent German is in Illuminationen. Ausgewählte Schriften 1 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1977 [1955]), pp. 251–262 (under the title 'Über den Begriff der Geschichte'). Also in Benjamin, Zur Kritik der Gewalt und andere Aufsätze (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1971), pp. 78–94.

In both editions, the 'Theses' are followed by a one-page piece under the title 'Theological-Political Fragment', which is related to it and is useful to read alongside. An English translation of that piece is available in Benjamin, Selected Writings. Volume 3: 1935–1938, ed. Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press/Belknap, 2002), pp. 305–6. 

If you wish to join the group, please get in touch with alex.samely@manchester.ac.uk.  

Reading Derrida on Husserl's 'Origin of Geometry'

By zoom, 8 May 2024

For our next meeting we decided to read an excerpt from Derrida's book on Husserl's "Origin", to be followed in the meeting/s thereafter by some Benjamin, including his "Theses on the Philosophy of History". 

Pages 25-27, 107–117 (section VIII), and 133-153, of: Jacques Derrida, Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry. An Introduction, trans. John P. Leavey, Jr (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989 [First Bison Printing]) 

French original 1962; Carr's translation of the Husserl piece, which we read ourselves a few weeks ago, is reprinted in this book as well. 

If you wish to receive further information, please get in touch with alex.samely@manchester.ac.uk. 

 Manchester Phenomenology Reading Group: Husserl's Crisis book as a whole

Our next meeting will be on 24 April at 5pm. After discussing at the last meeting the appendix of the Crisis book on the Origin of Geometry, the next session is meant to range across the whole of the text and highlight topics that have struck us as being of particular interest or problematical. It will conclude our engagement with Crisis, although there may be further meetings concerned with topics arising from it. 

If you wish to receive a zoom invite, please contact alex.samely@manchester.ac.uk. 

Husserl's 'Origin of Geometry':

 Next session, 10 April, 5pm–6.30: Husserl, Crisis appendix "Origin of Geometry". 

We had a meeting on 27 March, devoted to the final sections of the Crisis book (§§71–72, plus taking note of the appendix which Biemel, the editor of the relevant Husserliana volume, used as the concluding §73). 

We decided to read for 10 April the above appendix, together with relevant earlier parts of the Crisis book where Husserl speaks of the role of geometry in the emergence of modern science in Galileo's work and leading up to it.

The appendix is reprinted in the Husserliana volume for Krisis, and in Carr's translation, as appendix VI. That Carr translation is also available as part of the book by Derrida, Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry: An Introduction, trans. Leavey, U of Nebraska Press, 1978 (1962).

The first publication was posthumously, as 'Die Frage nach dem Ursprung der Geometrie als intentional-historisches Problem', in Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 1 (1939), pp. 207–225, with a preface by Eugen Fink, pp. 203–206 (available through JSTOR). The manuscript, with some differences to Fink's publication, is presented in Biemel's Husserliana 6 edition of Krise, as Beilage III, pp. 365–386. 

If you wish to take part, please get in touch with alex.samely@manchester.ac.uk for the zoom link.

 Next meeting 6 March at 5pm: §§ 62–70 of Husserl, Crisis (pp. 214–244 in the Carr translation)

On Wednesday we finished our discussion of the lectures on the epoché of acts of 'fantasy' (and the epoché of acts of epoché) in First Philosophy. For our next meeting we return to the Crisis book (details above).

Anyone wishing to join the group, please get in touch with Alex at alex.samely@manchester.ac.uk

 We meet again on 21 February 5pm, reading pages from First Philosophy and perhaps also Crisis.

We will devote a second meeting to our discussion of First Philosophy, lectures 43–47 (in Part Two; for details see below). Additionally, we plan to discuss, if we get round to it, the Crisis book up to the end of § 66 (that is, up to p. 229 in Carr's translation). 

If you wish to receive the zoom for our meetings, please get in touch with alex.samely@manchester.ac.uk.