Date: Thursday 30 April, 14:00-17:00
Location: Library Lab Magnel, Rozier, 9000 Ghent

This “meet the expert” activity consists of a masterclass session with Lisa Guenther (Queen’s University), a leading scholar in critical phenomenology. In this session, she will guide participants through a close reading of two of her key articles, offering insight into how critical phenomenology can illuminate the ways lived experience is shaped by social, political, and material structures.

Critical phenomenology is an innovative and rapidly growing research approach that examines how lived experience is shaped by social, political, and material structures such as race, gender, disability, spatial organisation, and institutional power. Increasingly used across disciplines — including philosophy, sociology, political theory, and health studies– it provides conceptual tools for analysing structural injustice as it manifests in everyday life.

By engaging directly with a key text (or texts) under the guidance of one of the field’s foremost contributors, attendees will gain insight into current debates, emerging research directions, and the societal relevance of phenomenological methods for studying inequality, marginalisation, and systemic violence. The activity aims to foster intellectual exchange across disciplines and institutions and to strengthen doctoral-level research capacity in socially engaged theory. 

Reading materials that we will discuss:

Guenther, L. (2021). Six senses of critique for critical phenomenology. Puncta, 4(2), 5-23.

Guenther, L. (2024).  Collective Memory at Canada’s Prison for Women. Critical Times, 7(2), 260-279.

Registration via: https://event.ugent.be/registration/MasterclassLisaGuenther

Or contact: lei.decappelle@ugent.be / Michiel.deproost@ugent.be