Methods of Entering Where Access is Restricted Abstract Where social occasions, in the context of nightclubs and music venues, are bounded, the space of the entrance is accomplished via regulation of attendees by workers. This regulation ensures: the venue stays within capacity; people have been invited or (if required) pay the fee; entry to ‘undesirables,’ such as drunks, is prohibited. This paper draws from experience of attending social occasions and being a doorperson to categorise and examine methods of entering where access is restricted. Often methods require attendees to engage in visible dialogue with the doorperson; where methods are invisible, attendees can circumvent access restrictions whilst a semblance of order is maintained.

Freud and Heidegger on the ‘Origins’ of Sexuality Abstract While Freud and Heidegger were antipathetic towards one another’s ideas, a number of commentators have argued that the Freud–Heidegger relation is actually quite complementary. This paper contributes to this position by engaging with the relationship through the mediation of their respective views on the ‘origins’ of sexuality; a topic that is implicit to Freudian psychoanalytic theory and which is often taken to be absent from Heidegger’s, with the consequence that it has been ignored when bringing them into conversation. Having shown that in the 1928 lecture course The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, Heidegger does in fact address the question of sexuality in relation to the neutrality of Dasein outlined in the previous year’s Being and Time, I (1) bring Freud and Heidegger into conversation on the question of the ‘origins’ of sexuality to suggest that there is a strong affinity between the two on this issue, insofar as both (2) argue against any form of sexual essentialism by depending upon a processual (rather than substantial) ontology and affirming an originary sexual indeterminateness, which in the case of Freud takes the form of an initial bisexuality and in the case of Heidegger an ontological sexual neutrality, before (3) concluding that, while Freud’s initial bisexuality forecloses sexuality within a binary framework, Heidegger’s notion of an ontological sexual neutrality does not, and so goes furthest in laying the ground for a rethinking of sexuality in non-essentialist, non-binary terms.

Heidegger and Husserl on the Technological-Scientific Worldview Abstract This paper discusses the relation between the later Husserl and the later Heidegger regarding their criticisms of modern science and technology. It is suggested that the overlap between both accounts is more significant than is standardly acknowledged. The paper first explores Heidegger’s ideas about the ‘essences’ of science and technology, how they allegedly determine the contemporary worldview, conceal our relation to being, and how Heidegger warrants his critical attitude toward this. It then discusses Husserl’s philosophical–historical assessment of the ‘idea’ of modern science, which Husserl believed resulted in the decapitation of philosophical questioning. Although key differences in method, aims, and their proposed solution to the dominance of the technological-scientific worldview should not be overlooked, the paper suggests that core aspects of Heidegger’s analyses can be traced back to Husserl.

Harold Garfinkel’s Legacy

Kelly Oliver: Carceral Humanitarianism: Logics of Refugee Detention

Interview with Harold Garfinkel

Being Together, Worlds Apart: A Virtual-Worldly Phenomenology Abstract Previous work in Game Studies has centered on several loci of investigation in seeking to understand virtual gameworlds. First, researchers have scrutinized the concept of the virtual world itself and how it relates to the idea of “the magic circle”. Second, the field has outlined various forms of experienced “presence”. Third, scholarship has noted that the boundaries between the world of everyday life and virtual worlds are porous, and that this fosters a multiplicity of identities as players identify both with themselves-offline and themselves-in-game. Despite widespread agreement that these topics are targets for research, so far those working on these topics do not have mutually agreed-upon framework. Here we draw upon the work of Alfred Schutz to take up this call. We provide a phenomenological framework which can be used to describe the phenomena of interest to Game Studies, as well as open new avenues of inquiry, in a way acceptable and useful to all. This helps to distinguish the core of the field from the supplemental theoretical and critical commitments which characterize diverse approaches within the field.

Seeing the Other’s Mind: McDowell and Husserl on Bodily Expressivity and the Problem of Other Minds Abstract McDowell motivates a disjunctive conception of experience in the context of other-minds skepticism, but his conception of other minds has been less frequently discussed. In this paper, I focus on McDowell’s perceptual account of others that emphasizes the primitivity of others’ bodily expressivity and his defense of a common-sense understanding of others. And I suggest that Husserl’s subtle analysis of bodily expressivity not only bears fundamental similarities with McDowell’s but also helps to demonstrate the sense in which McDowell’s emphasis on bodily expressivity can remove some of the grounds for other minds skepticism. I argue that the other’s behavioral manifestation is first and foremost perceived in a salient Gestalt and social perception is inherently infused with a constitutive propensity with which we normally take the other as human person in the first place. In this light, I show that Husserl’s account can better elucidate human expressivity and its intrinsic features, thereby helping to remove some of the props of other-minds skepticism. As a result, I believe it proves fruitful to juxtapose McDowell’s and Husserl’s account of bodily expressivity, so as to alternate the Cartesian picture of other-minds that engenders skeptic anxiety and to secure a common-sense understanding of other people.

From Documentary Meaning to Documentary Method: A Preliminary Comment on the Third Chapter of Harold Garfinkel’s Studies in Ethnomethodology Abstract The text deals with Harold Garfinkels theorizing of what Karl Mannheim called ‘documentary meaning’, and established as a foundation of all historical disciplines, and what Garfinkel calls the ‘documentary method’ of lay and professional sociological reasoning. The commentary tries to establish the systematical position of the chapter in Garfinkel’s ‘Studies in Ethnomethodology’, and, indeed, in Garfinkel’s social theory at the time of publication. This position involves, and redefines, Weber’s definition of sociology, Schütz’s sociology of knowledge and especially, the very idea of a common stock of. typifications, and the discovery of ‘historical time’, or ‘Geschichtlichkeit’ in each micro-sequential interaction. Some consequences are drawn, or sketched, for ethnomethodology as a steady thorn in the side of sociology, and vice versa: for lay and professional sociology as an equally steady thorn in the midst of ethnomethodology.

From Garfinkel’s ‘Experiments in Miniature’ to the Ethnomethodological Analysis of Interaction Abstract Since the 1940s Harold Garfinkel developed ethnomethodology as a distinctive sociological attitude. This sociological attitude turns the focus of the analysis of interaction to the actor’s perspective. It suggests that interaction is ongoingly produced through actions that are organized in a retrospective and prospective fashion. The ethnomethodological analysis of interaction therefore investigates how actors produce their actions in light of their analysis of immediately prior actions and in anticipation of possible next actions. Ethnomethodologists describe the relationship of actions emerging from this analysis as “sequential”. This article discusses how Garfinkel’s description of practical action as “experiment in miniature” can be seen as a precursor to the concept of “sequentiality” that defines today’s ethnomethodological analysis of interaction. Having discussed the intellectual background to ethnomethodology the article briefly explores two fragments of interaction audio-/video-recorded in a museum and an optometric consultation to illustrate the key concerns of this kind of analysis. The article closes with a short reflection on current developments in ethnomethodology and their relationship to sociology.