This essay shows how six adults in the age between 26 and 71 relate to alcohol and talk about the importance of alcohol in their early lives, when they grew up and now in their everyday life. Three men and three women participates in this study. I used the snowball method and Facebook to get in touch with people to interview. A short summary and presentation was sent out through e-mail to a total amount of ten persons. There are six persons participating in this study, four through physically recorded interviews and two answered the interview questions through e-mail. Theoretical perspectives in this essay is Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmanns phenomenology and Sara Ahmeds queer phenomenology. The aim for this study was partly to show how these persons, as individual subjects, relate to alcohol but also how they look at the body’s orientation in spaces where alcohol is present such as the pub. Both the women and the men in this study talked about the pub as a place where it’s expensive and that the supply is limited. The pub was not described as a particularly nice place. The women in this study talked about that they don’t feel a need to drink alcohol or to become drunk. The men in this study primarily see alcohol as a type of meal drink. When it comes to differences between masculinity and femininity associated with alcohol this essay shows that the women in this study often think about the risks of drinking too much or they look down on others drinking too much. The men in this study showed awareness of the fact that women are more likely to be corrected if they drink too much and that it’s easier for men to become drunk without anyone correcting them.

(in English): The diploma work Husserl's phenomenology of attention systematically presents Husserl's conception of attention. The first part deals with the presentation of Husserl's static phenomenology of attention, taking into account in particular of Logical Investigations and Ideas I. The second part is devoted to genetic phenomenology of attention, which is reconstructed mainly upon Experience and Judgment and Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis. In it's conclusion the work offers other possible perspectives of investigation of the phenomenon of attention from the phenomenological positions.

This thesis is an attempt to reflect on the theme of phenomena and sensuous world in the context of environmentalism. It deals with the condemnation of phenomena in the modern era science and especially in the contemporary neo-Darwinian biology, and with various attempts at rehabilitation of sensory perception as a relevant way of relating to the world in biology (Adolf Portmann, Hans Driesch) and philosophy (phenomenology, particularly Maurice Merleau-Ponty). The main subject of the thesis is the eco- phenomenology of David Abram and a comparison of his approach with the one held by contemporary biology. Based on this comparison it is argued in what manner may the thoughts of David Abram, and the effort to rehabilitate phenomena in general, be of benefit to the environmental discourse, particularly in terms of forming an original epistemology and ontology and concerning the ethical motivations. KEYWORDS: Abram, phenomenon, environmentalism, neo-Darwinism, phenomenology, eco-phenomenology

The aim of this paper is to understand how trans people who write and read fanfiction about gender euphoria create meaningful writing processes, contextualize community, and orientate themselves in the world by telling stories about gender euphoria and related emotional experiences. I have conducted interactive chat interviews with four study participants and have, as a way of using an autoethnographic research method, included my own narratives as part of the material. Thus, the material used in this study consists of transcripts of collective sensemaking and discussions about differences and similarities in the experiences that the study participants and I tell each other about. I have analyzed the material using queer phenomenology and affect theory. I have found that the study participants have both varied and similar experiences of finding representation, of translating their emotions into actions, and of (re)shaping what it is that they, as trans people, can do and what narratives they can tell and experience.

This thesis will explore three related concerns. First (Chapter 1), I discern some of the basic philosophical strategies at work in the Phenomenology of Perception. I will specifically discuss the teleological/ archaeological structure of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology and his notion of "primordial unity". Second (Chapter 2), I will show how these strategies are manifest in his discussion of the other. And third (Chapter 3), I will consider some of the consequences of Merleau-Ponty's treatment of the other. In particular, I will examine his understanding of difference and plurality. A comparison with Hegel's master/slave dialectic will highlight some possible limitations of Merleau-Ponty's argument. In short, I will answer the following questions: How is the other known, according to Merleau-Ponty, and just how other is this other? / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The increasingly complex nature of health care requires nursing graduates, upon completion of their formal education, to be fully capable of providing safe and competent patient care. Accrediting bodies for schools of nursing have challenged nursing education to develop and implement innovative, research-based pedagogies that engage students in learning. Narrative Pedagogy is an innovative approach to teaching and learning developed by Nancy Diekelmann after many years of researching nursing education using Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology. As a new paradigm for teachers and students gathering in learning, Narrative Pedagogy is understood to be both a strategy and a philosophy of teaching. Narrative Pedagogy as a strategy provides an approach using the interpretation of clinical stories to better understand the experience of the patient, the nurse, and the family. Narrative Pedagogy as a philosophy of teaching offers Diekelmann’s Concernful Practices as a way of comportment for teachers and students as they gather in learning and teachers as they incline toward teaching narratively. This hermeneutic phenomenological study examined the experience of Nurse Educators with Narrative Pedagogy. Findings include overarching Pattern: Narrative Pedagogy as Bridge. Two themes are: 1) Students and teachers gathering in learning, and 2) Inclining toward teaching with Narrative Pedagogy. Positive teaching experiences and positive learning experiences with Narrative Pedagogy will advance the science of nursing education by adding to the body of knowledge of alternative pedagogies.

The aim of this paper is to explore the theme of history in Husserl’s phenomenology, a theme to which he had a complex relation. While in his programmatic text, Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft, he opposed himself to the so-called “historicism” of some of his contemporaries, claiming that it leads to relativism, he later in his career sought to incorporate historical reflections into the core of the phenomenological method. The challenge, then, is to understand, or perhaps to reconcile, the tension between Husserl’s early anti-historicism and his later turn toward history and historical reflections. By highlighting some of the key points in the development of his phenomenology, such as the distinction between static and genetic analysis, this tension is shown to be nothing but apparent. By expanding the scope of his notion of essences to also include motivations, origins, and ideals, the later Husserl gives to phenomenology a fundamentally historical and temporal dimension. A central component in this development, it is argued, is the notion of sense-reflection (Besinnung), connecting phenomenology both to historical and ethical concerns. In later texts such as Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften, sense-reflection is used in a variety of contexts: as indicating the retrieval of historically lost meaning (such as that within the sciences); as indicating the Socratic ethos of self-knowledge (Selbstbesinnung); and lastly, as indicating the process of performing the phenomenological reduction. Ultimately, according to Husserl, only by engaging in historical sense-reflections can phenomenology become a truly rigorous science, seeking to clarify the meaning of science as an intersubjective project aiming toward the realization of human rationality and reason.

Cette thèse porte sur l'esthétique au sein de la phénoménologie, et plus particulièrement sur le problème de l'unité de l'esthétique, sur la question de la continuité entre sensibilité et art telle qu'elle est posée dans les philosophies d'Erwin Straus, de Maurice Merleau-Ponty et d'Henri Maldiney. Nous montrons d'abord comment la phénoménologie, en devenant phénoménologie de l'art, reprend et accomplit la philosophie de l'art traditionnelle, retrouvant par-là même ses difficultés et impasses : la subordination de l'art à la philosophie, le primat théorique de l’œuvre d'art sur l'artiste, l'assimilation de l'artiste au génie, la promotion de la peinture et de la littérature et l'exclusion de la danse, l'identification du spectateur à un incréateur. Nous mettons ensuite en évidence le fait que la phénoménologie est irréductible à une philosophie de l'art, qu'elle est aussi une esthétique capable de dépasser les problèmes de la phénoménologie de l'art autant que de l'esthétique classique, intellectualiste et empiriste. Seulement l'esthétique phénoménologique rejoue plutôt qu'elle ne déjoue ces problèmes : l'art et l'artiste demeurent mystérieux, l'esthétique phénoménologique est encore une religion de l'art. C'est pourquoi, enfin, une nouvelle esthétique s'impose – une esthétique cosmologique –, nourrie de la double déconstruction de la phénoménologie de l'art et de l'esthétiquephénoménologique, et dirigée vers l'impératif d'éconduire le mysticisme résurgent des doctrines sur l'art. En somme, ce travail vise à rendre compte philosophiquement, sans mythologie interposée, du phénomène artistique. / This doctoral dissertation focuses on aesthetics within the phenomenological movement, especially on the problem of the unity of aesthetics, on the question of continuity between sensibility and art as it is formulated in the philosophies of Erwin Straus, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Henri Maldiney. We start by showing how phenomenology, by becoming a phenomenology of art”, recovers and completes the traditional philosophy of art, thereby rediscovering its impasses and difficulties: the subordination of art to philosophy, the theoretical priority of the work of art over the artist, the assimilation of the artist to a genius, the promotion of painting and literature and theexclusion of dance, the identification of the spectator with an uncreator. We then highlight the fact that phenomenology is irreducible to a philosophy of art, that it is also an aesthetics able to surpass the problems of the phenomenology of art as much as those of classical – intellectualist and empiricist – aesthetics. Nevertheless, “phenomenological aesthetics” updates these problems: art and artist remainmysterious, phenomenological aesthetics is still a religion of art. For this reason, finally, a new aesthetics is necessary – a “cosmological aesthetics” –, nourished by the double deconstruction of the phenomenology of art and phenomenological aesthetics, and directed towards the imperative to erase the resurgent mysticism of doctrines on art. In short, our study intends to explain – philosophically, without mythology – the artistic phenomenon.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Geography / Richard A. Marston / David R. Seamon / Sprawling over 180 square miles of California’s Mojave Desert, Wonder Valley was founded in the early 1950s and today is an unincorporated community of approximately 1,000 residents. The community’s landscape is expansive and unsettling, featuring a chaotic assortment of residences that include abandoned homesteads, squatter settlements, artists’ studios, middle-class cabins, and luxury vacation properties. This dissertation explores Wonder Valley’s enigmatic place identity from residents’ point of view, drawing on an experiential understanding of place grounded in humanistic and phenomenological geography. Specifically, the dissertation makes use of Edward Relph’s explication of place identity to guide empirical inquiry and conceptual structure. Drawing on resident interviews, place observations, and textual analysis, the dissertation identifies and explicates three distinct Wonder Valley identities—homesteaders, dystopics, and utopics. Arriving in the 1950s, homesteaders were Wonder Valley’s first inhabitants and express a practical connection to the landscape that is interpreted in terms of environmental reach, specifically, the creation, maintenance, and extension of environmental and place order. During the 1970s, as many homesteaders abandoned Wonder Valley, dystopics arrived and today include two subgroups: first, a criminal element pulled to Wonder Valley because of its local isolation but regional proximity to Los Angeles; and, second, destitute squatters pushed out from other communities and having nowhere else to go. The third group identified is utopics, primarily artists from Los Angeles and San Francisco, who arrived in the early 1990s, attracted by Wonder Valley’s natural beauty and sacred ambience. The dissertation explores how these three groups arrived at different times, for different reasons, to create vastly different landscapes, to engage in opposing aims and activities, and to understand Wonder Valley’s meaning as a place in greatly contrasting ways. These differences in meaning are most directly expressed in the common areas of public land, which have often become sites of inter-group tension and conflict, particularly in regard to abandoned homesteads and the use of off-road vehicles. To interpret this group conflict conceptually, the dissertation develops what is termed existential ecotone— a unique mode of place experience generated by overlapping but contrasting modes of being-in-place.

Adolescent motherhood is a reality amongst South African adolescent girls from all cultures. However, there is a scarcity of information available on Swazi adolescents’ experiences of early motherhood. The research consequently aimed at exploring and describing the experiences of early motherhood amongst Swazi adolescent girls. The participants were encouraged to describe their unique lived experiences as to the early period of adolescent motherhood (pregnancy included). Positive psychology provided the theoretical framework, and phenomenology was used as the methodical design for this qualitative study. Purposeful and snowball sampling was used to find the nine participants. Semistructured one-on-one interviews were conducted with Swazi girls ranging from the ages of 16 to 20 years. The interviews were conducted in English as a second language of the participants, and they all resided within the Nkomazi municipality in Mpumalanga, South Africa. The collected data were analyzed according to the interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA) and five main themes were identified: (a) The influence of emotions; (b) Social support during early adolescent motherhood; (c) Challenges experienced during early motherhood; (d) Personal growth; and (e) Resilience. The research findings indicate that early motherhood amongst Swazi adolescents comprises both positive and negative experiences and results in good and bad emotional experiences. All the participants experienced incidences in which their immediate environment (family, friends, community, neighbours, school, and boyfriends) rejected them and were unsupportive. This was especially evident in the ongoing lack of support offered by the biological father of the baby and the deterioration of original friendships. Ultimately however, it became apparent that the inherent Swazi culture and African principle of “Ubuntu” resulted in their being mostly accepted and supported. Furthermore, most participants experienced personal growth and a sense of maturity. Insights gained from motherhood resulted in participants making more responsible choices with regards to sexual behaviour, changes in their priorities, developing their characters, becoming more ambitious to achieve their personal life goals and becoming future orientated. The personal growth of most participants was clearly indicated by the mastering of several challenges related to early motherhood. A change in lifestyle was the most significant problem to overcome, and other challenges included the “burden” of being a provider, financial constraints in the present and future, interrupted education, loss of leisure time, and the experience of helplessness in times of need, for example when the baby is ill. Despite the fact that adolescent motherhood was experienced as a difficult occurrence, most participants (six of the nine) demonstrated high levels of resilience. These participants demonstrated effective coping strategies by taking responsibility and ownership of the difficulties associated with adolescent motherhood, and expressed the desire to be good mothers. Recommendations are given to enhance the well-being of Swazi adolescent mothers and the findings offer guidelines for a pregnancy prevention program as well as giving ideas on how to support adolescent girls in their journey of motherhood. / MA (Psychology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015