Phenomenology of the Alien: Basic Concepts

Tanja Stähler and Alexander Kozin’s elegant translation of Bernhard Waldenfels’s Phenomenology of the Alien (Grundmotive einer Phänomenologie des Fremden) introduces the English readership to the philosophy of alien-experience, a multifaceted and multidimensional phenomenon that permeates our everyday experiences of the life-world with immediate implications for the ways we conduct our social, political, and ethical affairs. With impressive erudition Waldenfels weaves in xenological themes from classical philosophy, contemporary phenomenology, literature, linguistics, sociology, and anthropology to address the boundaries of experience that unite and separate human beings, their collectives, their perceptions, and aspirations. While the debate has long raged in German-speaking circles, Waldenfels’s work is largely unavailable to the English-speaking audience, with the only other translation being The Order in the Twilight (1996). Phenomenology of the Alien is a superb introduction to both xenological phenomenology, and the the question of the alien as it has been unfolding in contemporary thought.