This page outlines several phenomenological books and book chapters that have inspired and moved us in our work. We’ve tried to group each of the texts/chapters by theme.
Movement in Phenomenology: Relational, Affective, and Somatic Accounts
Abram, D. (1997). The spell of the sensuous: Perception and language in a more-than-human world (First Vintage Books Edition). Random House, Inc.
Abram, D. (2010). Becoming animal: An Earthly cosmology. New York: Pantheon Books.
Churchill, S. D. (2022a). Essentials of existential phenomenological research (pp. viii, 110). American Psychological Association.
Fraleigh, S. H. (1987). Dance and the lived body: A descriptive aesthetics. University of Pittsburgh Press.
Fraleigh, S. H. (2004). Dancing identity: Metaphysics in motion. University of Pittsburgh Press.
Fraleigh, S. (Ed.). (2015). Moving consciously: Somatic transformations through dance, yoga, and touch. University of Illinois Press.
Fraleigh, S. H. (Ed.). (2018). Back to the dance itself: Phenomenologies of the body in performance. University of Illinois Press.
Fraleigh, S. (2023). Somatics in dance, ecology, and ethics: The flowing live present. Intellect Ltd.
Fuchs, T. (2013). The phenomenology of affectivity. In K. W. M. Fulford, M. Davies, R. Gipps, G. Graham, J. Z. Sadler, G. Stanghellini, & T. Thornton (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy & Psychiatry (Online, pp. 612–631). Oxford Academic.
Fuchs, T. (2017). Intercorporeality and interaffectivity. In C. Meyer, J. Streek, & J. S. Jordan (Eds.), Intercorporeality: Emerging socialities in interaction (pp. 3-24). Oxford University Press.
Sheets-Johnstone, M. (1999). The primacy of movement. John Benjamins Pub.
Sheets-Johnstone, M. (2015). The phenomenology of dance. Temple University Press.
Sheets-Johnstone, M. (2019). Essential dimensions of being a body. In H. Payne, S. Koch, J. Tantia, & T. Fuchs (Eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Embodied Perspectives in Psychotherapy: Approaches from dance movement and body psychotherapies (pp. 19–27). Routledge.
Sheets-Johnstone, M. (2020). Performing phenomenological methodology. In L. Cull & A. Lagaay. The Routledge Companion to Performance Philosophy (1st. ed.). (pp. 195-203) Routledge.
Snowber, Celeste. (1995). Embodied prayer: Harmonizing body and soul (1st ed.). Triumph Books.
Stern, D. N. (2004). The present moment in psychotherapy and everyday life (1st ed.). W.W. Norton.
Szanto, T., & Landweer, H. (Eds.). (2020). The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion. Routledge.
Doing Phenomenological Research
Churchill, S. D. (2016). Resonating with meaning in the lives of others: An invitation to empathic understanding. In C. T. Fischer, L. Laubscher, & R. Brooke (Eds.), The qualitative vision for psychology: An invitation to a human science approach (pp. 91–116). Duquesne University Press.
Creely, E., Southcott, J., Carabott, K., & Lyons, D. (Eds.). (2020). Phenomenological inquiry in education: Theories, practices, provocations and directions. Routledge.
Hopp, W. (2020). Phenomenology: A contemporary introduction. Routledge.
Fraleigh, S. H., & Hanstein, Penelope. (1999). Researching dance: evolving modes of inquiry. University of Pittsburgh Press.
Lloyd, R. J. & Smith, S. J. (2015). Doing motion-sensing phenomenology. In K. Tobin, & S.R. Steinberg (Eds.), Doing educational research: A handbook (Second ed.) (pp. 255-277). Rotterdam, NL, United States: Sense Publishing.
Snowber, C. (2016). Embodied inquiry: Writing, living and being through the body (1st ed.). BRILL.
Snowber, C. N. (2022). Dance, place, and poetics: Site-specific performance as a portal to knowing (1st ed.). Springer International Publishing AG.
Vagle, M. D. (2018). Crafting phenomenological research (2nd ed.). Routledge.
van Manen, M. (2016a). Phenomenology of practice: Meaning-giving methods in phenomenological research and writing. Routledge.
van Manen, M. (2016b). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy (2nd Edition). Routledge.
van Manen, & Van Manen, M. (2021). Classic writings for a phenomenology of practice. Routledge.
Zahavi, D. (2018). Phenomenology: The basics. Routledge.
Classics in Phenomenology
Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. The University of Chicago Press.
Heidegger, M. (1996). Being and time (J. Stambaugh, Trans.). State University of New York.
Heidegger, M. (2003). Philosophical and political writings (M. Stassen, Ed.). Continuum.
Hegel, G. W. F. (1977). Phenomenology of spirit (A. V. Miller, Trans.). Oxford University Press.
Husserl, E. (1980). Phenomenology and the foundations of the sciences: Third book, Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy. M. Nijhoff.
Husserl, E. (1983). Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy: First book, General introduction to a pure phenomenology. M. Nijhoff.
Husserl, E. (1989). Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy: Second book, Studies in the phenomenology of constitution. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Heidegger, M. (2013). Being and time (Original edition.). Stellar Books.
Merleau-Ponty, M., Dreyfus, P. Allen., & Dreyfus, H. L. (1962). Sense and non-sense. Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M., Lefort, C., & Lingis, A. (1968). The visible and the invisible: followed by working notes; edited by Claude Lefort. Northwestern University Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (2005). Phenomenology of perception (C. Smith, Trans.; E-Library). Taylor & Francis.
Sartre, J.-P. (1961). The age of reason. Penguin Books.
Sartre, J.-P., & Sartre, J.-P. (1957). Existentialism and human emotions. Philosophical Library.
Sartre, J.-P., & Elkaim-Sartre, Arlette. (2004). The imaginary: A phenomenological psychology of the imagination. Routledge.
Sartre, J. P. (2018). Being and nothingness: An essay in phenomenological ontology (S. Richmond, Trans). Washington Square Press.
Phenomenological Approaches to Care, Health, & Wellbeing
Finlay, L. (2011). Phenomenology for therapists: Researching the lived world. Wiley-Blackwell.
Galvin, K., & Todres, L. (2013). Caring and well-being: A lifeworld approach. Routledge.
Leder, D. (2024). The healing body: Creative responses to illness, aging, and affliction. Northwestern University Press.
Stern, D. N. (2010). Forms of vitality: Exploring dynamic experience in psychology, the arts, psychotherapy, and development. Oxford University Press.
Todres, L. (2011). Embodied enquiry: Phenomenological touchstones for research, psychotherapy, and spirituality (Paperback). Palgrave Macmillan.
Learning, Education, & Professional Practices
Barnacle, R. (2009). Gut instinct: The body and learning. In Exploring education through phenomenology (pp. 16–27). Wiley‐Blackwell.
DeRobertis, E. M. (2017). The phenomenology of learning and becoming: Enthusiasm, creativity, and self-development. Palgrave Macmillan.
Engelland, C. (Ed.). (2020). Language and phenomenology. Routledge.
Green, B., & Hopwood, N. (Eds.). (2015). The body in professional practice, learning, and education: Body/Practice. Springer.
Greenberg, H. K., Sohn, B. K., Greenberg, N. B., Pollio, H. R., Thomas, S. P., & Smith, J. T. (Eds.). (2019). The phenomenological heart of teaching and learning: Theory, research, and practice in higher education. Routledge.
Howard, P., Saevi, T., Foran, A., & Biesta, G. (Eds.). (2021). Phenomenology and educational theory in conversation: Back to education itself. Routledge.
Ingold, T. (Ed.). (2023). Knowing from the inside: Cross-disciplinary experiments with matters of pedagogy. Bloomsbury Academic.
Richmond, S., & Snowber, C. (2009). Landscapes of aesthetic education. Cambridge Scholars.
Feminist Phenomenologies
Alaimo, S. (2018). Bodies of water: posthuman feminist phenomenology [Review of Bodies of water: posthuman feminist phenomenology]. Green Letters, 22(3), 331–334. Routledge.
Alcoff, L. M. (2000). Phenomenology, post-structuralism, and feminist theory on the concept of experience. In Feminist phenomenology (pp. 39-56). Springer, Dordrecht.
Allen-Collinson, J. (2013). Feminist phenomenology and the woman in the running body. In Phenomenological approaches to sport (pp. 121-137). Routledge.
Al-Saji, A. (2017). Feminist phenomenology. In The Routledge companion to feminist philosophy (pp. 143-154). Routledge.
Barrera, A. M. (2019). Testimonies of undocumented students in higher education: a critical Latina feminist phenomenology.
Dolezal, L. (2015). The body and shame: Phenomenology, feminism, and the socially shaped body. Lexington Books.
Dolezal L. & Petherbridge, D (Eds.). (2017). Body/self/other: The phenomenology of social encounters. State University of New York Press.
Donohoe, J. (2019). Rethinking feminist phenomenology: Theoretical and applied perspectives. In Choice (Vol. 56, Issue 8, p. 1014). American Library Association dba CHOICE.
Fielding, H. A., & Olkowski, D. E. (2017). Feminist phenomenology futures. Indiana University Press.
Fisher, L., & Embree, L. (2000). Feminist phenomenology. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Gambaudo, S. (2017). Is there such a thing as “woman writing”? Angelaki, 22(1), 23–33.
Lee, S. B. (2012). Femininity and domination: Studies in the phenomenology of oppression.
Levesque-Lopman, L. (2000). Listen, and you will-hear: Reflections on interviewing from a feminist phenomenological perspective. In Feminist phenomenology (pp. 103-132). Springer, Dordrecht.
Ortega, M. (2016). In-between: Latina feminist phenomenology, multiplicity, and the self. SUNY press.
Shabot, S. C., & Landry, C. (2018). Rethinking Feminist Phenomenology: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Stoller, S. (Ed.). (2014). Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy of age: Gender, ethics, and time. Walter de Gruyter.
Stoller, S. (2017). What is feminist phenomenology: Looking backward and into the future. In H. A. Fielding & D. E. Olkowski (Eds.), Feminist phenomenology futures (pp. 328-354). Indiana University Press.
van Leeuwen, A. (2012). Beauvoir, Irigaray, and the possibility of feminist phenomenology. The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 26(2), 474-484.
Weiss, G. (2021, June 10). Feminist Phenomenology. The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Philosophy.
Young, I. M. (2005). On female body experience:” Throwing like a girl” and other essays. Oxford University Press.