Tag Archives: phenomenology

The Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places (preprint)

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The Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places

In preprint, not proofed and not correctly paginated version, is available.
This is an Accepted Manuscript of book chapters published by Routledge in Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places, in 2018, the proofed, official version is available for purchase online: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315106267 OR https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315106267

Or you can download the chapters from this link: The Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places

Free access: Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places

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Routledge is running a monograph sale through June 11th. Readers can now access The Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places free-of-charge for seven days. At the end of the trial period, they’ll have the opportunity to purchase the eBook for £10/$15.

Here are the links to the offer.

The Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places

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New edited book out 8 November:

Champion, E. (Ed.). (2018). The Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places. The Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy series. Routledge. 08 November 2018 (ebook 26 October 2018 9781315106267). ISBN 9781138094079

Feel free to ask Routledge for a review form and book copy..

This collection of essays explores the history, implications, and usefulness of phenomenology for the study of real and virtual places. While the influence of phenomenology on architecture and urban design has been widely acknowledged, its effect on the design of virtual places and environments has yet to be exposed to critical reflection. These essays from philosophers, cultural geographers, designers, architects, and archaeologists advance the connection between phenomenology and the study of place. The book features historical interpretations on this topic, as well as context-specific and place-centric applications that will appeal to a wide range of scholars across disciplinary boundaries. The ultimate aim of this book is to provide more helpful and precise definitions of phenomenology that shed light on its growth as a philosophical framework and on its development in other disciplines concerned with the experience of place.

Foreword byJeff Malpas
Introduction by Erik Champion
1. The Inconspicuous Familiarity of Landscape by Ted Relph2. Landscape Archaeology in Skyrim VR by Andrew Reinhard

3. The Efficacy of Phenomenology for Investigating Place with Locative Media by Leighton Evans

4. Postphenomenology and “Places” by Don Ihde

5. Virtual Place and Virtualized Place by Bruce Janz

6. Transactions in virtual places: Sharing and excess in blockchain worlds by Richard Coyne

7. The Kyoto School Philosophy on Place: Nishida and Ueda by John W.M. Krummel

8. Phenomenology of Place and Space in our Epoch: Thinking along Heideggerian Pathways by Nader El-Bizri

9. Norberg-Schulz: Culture, Presence and a Sense of Virtual Place by Erik Champion

10. Heidegger’s Building Dwelling Thinking in terms of Minecraft by Tobias Holischka

11. Cézanne, Merleau-Ponty, and Questions for Augmented Reality by Patricia Locke

12. The Place of Others: Merleau-Ponty and the Interpersonal Origins of Adult Experience by Susan Bredlau

13. “The Place was not a Place”: A Critical Phenomenology of Forced Displacement Neil Vallelly

14. Virtual Dark Tourism in The Town of Light by Florence Smith Nicholls

The Phenomenology of Virtual Places (observations)

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Just submitted a draft of the above edited book of 14 proposed chapters to Routledge, to their Research in Phenomenology series.

The Phenomenology of Virtual Places is an edited book on the history, implications and usefulness of phenomenology for real places and virtual places, with chapters by philosophers, cultural geographers, architects and archaeologists.

I won’t summarize the chapters right now as the series editors have the right to ask for major subtractions, additions and revisions but I am very happy about the range of disciplines, perspectives and topics.

I do have some observations

  1. One thing very much under-represented is the unconventional, the alternative and the non-Western or not so obviously Western (and I don’t like the term “Western” but what are better options here)?
  2. Also, the connections and distinctions between phenomenology and ethnography are perhaps still to be explored, especially for game and VR evaluation.
  3. Phenomenology deserves even more criticism. It is either obvious, or difficult and subtle, available to all or best practiced by trained phenomenologists (or is that, people trained to detect or extract or train phenomenological accounts).
  4. Writing introductions to edited books can be very difficult.
  5. How HMDs will challenge our notions of embodiment and social presence in VR will be a very big thing.
  6. Locative media raise very interesting research avenues for embodiment and the concept of place.
  7. And on a workflow-related note, if the publisher doesn’t give you a complete, formal template at the start, stick to your own and demand it be used by all authors even if the final template changes. Saves a world of pain.
  8. Also, game and VR companies would save us all trouble by clearly saying which screenshots can be used in academic books or provide a pathway for a quicker permissions/rejections process. If your images are in a book, it is free PR!

call for chapters for edited book “Phenomenology, Place and Virtual Place”

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Phenomenology, Place and Virtual Place: can phenomenology help us convey and understand the ‘virtual place’ experience?

I am seeking 3-5 chapters for an edited book on the history, implications and usefulness of phenomenology for real places and virtual places, with chapters by philosophers, cultural geographers, architects and archaeologists.

Main themes:

1 Phenomenology, definitions, main concepts, historical interpretations.

2 Critical reviews of phenomenology, successes failures and lessons learnt.

3 Strengths and weaknesses of phenomenology compared to other methods.

4 Context-specific and discipline-specific applications of phenomenology applied to place.

5 Particular place-centric phenomenological investigations, issues and applications.

6 Phenomenology applied to virtual places.

There are currently seven proposed authors (see below) but I am aiming to include three to five more authors though an open call for abstracts. Topic 3 is still to be addressed (as well as, to some extent, Topic 2) so I would be particularly happy to receive abstract/chapter submissions on these two topics. You may also notice we currently only have male authors, I asked four leading female writers/philosophers and they were all busy so I would be very happy for a wider and more inclusive spread of perspectives.

Current Proposed Chapters

Introduction by Distinguished Professor Jeffrey Malpas, University of Tasmania.

1 Phenomenology’s Preoccupations and Place, Professor Bruce Janz, University of Central Florida, United States of America.

2 An Encumbering, Confining Reality: Comparing and Contrasting Real Reality and Real Places with Virtual Reality and Virtual Places, Professor David Seamon, Kansas State University.

3 The Inconspicuous Familiarity of Landscapes, Professor Ted Relph, Emeritus Professor University of Toronto.

4 Heidegger’s Bauen, Wohnen, Denken in terms of Minecraft, Dr. Tobias Holischka, Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt

5 Attention in virtual reality, Professor Richard Coyne, University of Edinburgh

6 Hermeneutics, Horizon and ‘Sense of Place’ Affordances in Virtual Environments, Professor Erik Champion, Curtin University

7 Using Mixed Reality to undertake archaeological phenomenology, Dr Stuart Eve, University of York

Typical book chapter length: 5,000–8,000 words
Philosophical emphasis: Yes as it is intended to be part of a series in Phenomenology (Philosophy) this will be a factor. However I would also be happy to receive submissions from writers with overlapping interests.

Current Status of Proposal: Have discussed with the editor of Routledge Research in Phenomenology and the book proposal will be sent to him for review when I have approximately 10-12 authors. We currently have seven authors.

Submission: by email or attached word or RTF document, approximately 300-500 words.

Deadline for chapter abstracts: Sunday 7 February 2016.

Deadline for draft chapters: Good question but I don’t know! I would probably aim for September 2016.

Email your abstract to: erik DOT champion AT Curtin edu au

Phenomenology and Place

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I wrote the below as an email to a small* group of writers/philosophers/academics I’ve found really helpful in my own thinking on phenomenology and place.
I won’t write their names (indeed, I have not even given them any time to respond yet) but I thought I would share my [redacted] email to them in case a reader here

  1. Totally disagrees with my premises and can help me improve them and/or..
  2. Believes they would have something worthy and useful to write in a potential book chapter on the topic.

Dear [insert your favorite live phenomenologist name here]…

For many years I have tried to understand place in virtual environments, how to understand how people experience it, and how to discover and communicate if there are elements of place missing from virtual environments and how to address that through criticism and through design.
My personal interest is in history and heritage (and cultural presence for archaeology simulations) but the problem is wider, and deeper than just virtual places.

I still feel that a possible help and a major problem comes from discussions of phenomenology, namely these:

  1. The role of phenomenology in philosophy is avoided by many philosophers (at least it was a problematic term when I wanted to study it in a philosophy department).
  2. Many outside philosophy use the word without clarifying or helping to clarify where and how it is best used and understood and its limitations (if any).
  3. Many of these papers lack critical analytical reflection and especially are not amenable to extrapolation beyond either the self or calls to authority (authority here usually means dead phenomenologists who are invoked for areas they never actually wrote about directly or perhaps for new discoveries that did not even exist in their time).
  4. In the Presence research area of virtual environment evaluation this is particularly evident yet the laboratory control conditions for Presence evaluations and their extremely generic yet vague questionnaires. Here phenomenology or some related ethnographic method could and should have an important role to play but because of its stigma (not helped by papers which haven’t always been the best examples of phenomenology) virtual environments (virtual reality environments, games, architectural simulations, virtual worlds) lack many of the rich interesting and engaging aspects and potential of place.

Sorry for the longish intro. My suggestion in brief, is probably an edited book: that compiles, describes and especially clarifies major techniques, conditions and limitations of phenomenology and how they could be used or adapted or critiqued for place design (and by extension, for virtual environments). The audience: I’d hope more for an audience of place interested designers and academics than philosophers per se.

*There were more people I had in mind to write to, but will extend the circle if I get a good response from the initial correspondents.