Being Startled: Phenomenology at the Edge of Meaning

Abstract

Opening with a consideration of the methodological stakes, the paper examines, in a preparatory way, the phenomenon of the startle as a limit case for phenomenological analysis. Taking a bearing from a traditional Husserlian schema, the analysis quickly finds itself twisting and turning, contorting the received phenomenological method in order to remain with the phenomenon. Elements of Heidegger’s “fundamental analysis of Dasein” are also tried out, but similarly find themselves dislocated by the peculiar phenomenological content of the startle. Thus unsettling the basic structures of phenomenology and temporality, the paper concludes by setting the scene for an encounter with Levinas’ perturbing notion of the il y a.

Informal Education as a Derridean Gift: a Deconstructive Reading of the Principles Guiding Youth Work Practice Within Neoliberal Policy Regimes

“…In short to enact a life fully immersed within 'being'-thus economy-would be to stagnate, to pin down and to archive via an overly synchronic paralysis; life becomes saturated by a historically established knowledge base (Gee 2017). Yet becoming-thus akin to a gift-would allow overload to the senses as though struck by the everlasting emotional state of startlement (see Love 2008). Therefore, ones' condition of enactment is the tension provided by such duality, the duality of being and becoming and gift and economy (Gee 2019).…”