We are happy to feature four invited submissions by Lisa Guenther, Kym Maclaren, Bonnie Mann, and Gayle Salamon, all of whom respond to the questions motivating our inaugural issue. Both Salamon and Maclaren offer a response to the question “What is critical phenomenology?” by exploring the productive relationship between critical theory and phenomenology. Salamon does this by tracing the history of the term critical phenomenology. Maclaren further explores the productive relationship between critical theory and phenomenology en route to her analysis (...) of intimacy. Focusing on the phenomena of shame and long-term solitary confinement, Mann and Guenther take up that question by performing the work of critical phenomenology. Mann also offers suggestions regarding critical or, as she calls it, feminist phenomenology’s relation to the tradition—both of classical phenomenology and feminist philosophy. Guenther shows how the work of critical phenomenology is already at play in the practices of resistance among prisoners in the Security Housing Unit of Pelican Bay State Prison in California. (shrink)

Kym Maclaren’s and David Morris’ edited volume Time, Memory, Institution: Merleau-Ponty’s New Ontology of Self is an excellent study of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s concepts of memory, temporality and institution. Its chapters examine these concepts in their relation to his indirect ontology, together revealing that selfhood is instituted via ontological disparity or divergence (écart). In this review, I explore what I take to be the most salient insights of the book’s authors, and suggest that the volume as a whole repositions phenomenology towards (...) a method that is implicated and operates in the movements of Being itself, and therefore calls for a critical phenomenology.Le volume Time, Memory, Institution: Merleau-Ponty’s New Ontology of Self dirigé par Kym Maclaren et David Morris présente une excellente étude des concepts de mémoire, temporalité et institution chez Merleau-Ponty. Ces concepts sont examinés en rapport avec l’ontologie indirecte de Merleau-Ponty, afin de révéler que le soi s’institue à travers un écart ontologique. Dans ce compte rendu, j’explore les intuitions des auteurs que je considère comme étant les plus significatives et je cherche à montrer comment l’ouvrage dans son ensemble vient replacer la phénoménologie dans la perspective d’une méthode qui opère dans les mouvements de l’Être lui-même, et appelle donc à une critique de la phénoménologie.Kym Maclaren e David Morris sono i curatori del volume Time, Memory, Institution: Merleau-Ponty’s New Ontology of Self che presenta un’eccellente analisi dei concetti di memoria, temporalità e istituzione nel pensiero del filosofo francese. Queste nozioni sono indagate in relazione all’ontologia indiretta di Merleau-Ponty, rivelando allo stesso tempo che il sé si istituisce a partire dalla disparità (écart) o dallo scarto ontologico. In questa recensione, mi concentro su quelli che ritengo essere gli apporti più significativi di questa opera collettiva, per mostrare come il volume nel suo insieme venga a riposizionare la fenomenologia nella prospettiva di un metodo che opera nei movimenti dell’Essere stesso e quindi implica una critica della fenomenologia. (shrink)