The Solace of the Sojourn: Towards a Praxis-oriented Phenomenological Methodology and Ethics of Deep Travel in Martin Heidegger's Sojourns

  • Andrew Urie York University
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32855/fcapital.201902.013
Keywords: Social Theory, Heidegger

Abstract

This article focuses on Martin Heidegger's little read travel journal, Sojourns (1962), and explores how it yields surprisingly fruitful insights into our contemporary era of neoliberal globalization via its implicit exploration of the complex interconnections between travel, phenomenology, and ethics. Specifically, I posit that Sojourns contains an implicit praxis-oriented phenomenological methodology and ethics of global travel that together gesture towards a coherent practice of "deep travel," which American literature scholar Cinzia Schiavini aptly defines as "a vertical movement in a closed space which starts from the surface of the land and goes backward in time, searching for the hidden social and cultural dynamics embedded in that [given] geographical context."

Author Biography

Andrew Urie, York University

Andrew Urie recently completed his PhD in Social and Political Thought at York University (Canada). He specializes in American intellectual history and popular culture, and his research interests include cultural political economy, literary studies, and textual sociology. His dissertation is entitled Turning Japanese: Japanization Anxiety, Japan-Bashing, and Reactionary White American Heteropatriarchy in Reagan-Bush Era Hollywood Cinema.  He has also published in Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy.

References

Armstrong, Karen. The Case for God. 2009. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2010. Print.

Bolt, Barbara. Heidegger Reframed. London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 2011. Print.

The City of K.: Franz Kafka and Prague. Prague: Mucha Museum, 2010. Print.

Coleman, J.A. The Dictionary of Mythology: An A-Z of Themes, Legends, and Heroes. London: Arcturus Publishing, 2008. Print.

Collins, Jeff. Heidegger: A Graphic Guide. 1998. London: Icon Books, 2010. Print.

Debord, Guy. Society of the Spectacle. 1967. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. New York: Zone Books, 1995.

“Drastic new rules coming very soon for visitors to Machu Picchu.†Andean Air Mail & Peruvian Times. 12 Mar. 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2017.

Faulkner, William. Requiem for a Nun. 1951. New York: Random House, 1966. Print.

Garland, Robert. Ancient Greece: Everyday Life in the Birthplace of Western Civilization. New York: Sterling Publishing, 2008. Print.

Gyr, Ueli. “The History of Tourism: Structures on the Path to Modernity.†EGO: European History Online. 3 Dec. 2010. Web. 7 Feb. 2017.

Heidegger and the Global Age. Eds. Antonio Cerella and Louiza Odysseos. London: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2017. Print.

Heidegger, Martin. “The Age of the World Picture.†1938. The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Trans. William Lovitt. New York: HarperCollins 2013. Print. 113-154.

---. Early Greek Thinking. Trans. David Farrell Krell and Frank A. Capuzzi. 1975. New York: Harper & Row, 1984. Print.

---. “Letter on Humanism. 1947. Trans. Frank. A. Capuzzi. Basic Writings. Ed. David Farrell Krell. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. Print.

---. Sojourns. 1989. Trans. John Panteleimon Manoussakis. Albany: SUNY Press, 2005. Print.

---. “The Thing.†1950. Poetry, Language, Thought. Trans. Albert Hofstader. New York: HarperCollins, 2013. Print. 161-180.

Holbein, Hans. The Ambassadors. 1533. National Gallery, London. The Renaissance: A Very Short Introduction. By Jerry Brotton. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. 2. Print.

Keen, Andrew. Digital Vertigo: How Today’s Online Social Revolution Is Dividing, Disorienting, and Diminishing Us. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2012. Print.

Manoussakis, John Panteleimon. “Translator’s Notes.†Sojourns: The Journey to Greece. New York: SUNY Press, 2005. Print. 59-70.

McCarthy, Niall. “Greeks work the longest hours in Europe.†Statista. 11 Mar. 2015. Web. 23 Feb. 2017.

“Petition launched to stop new building projects form ‘boxing’ in the Acropolis.†Neos Kosmos. 22 Feb. 2019. Web. 24 Jul. 2019.

Rowe, John Carlos. The Cultural Politics of the New American Studies. Ann Arbor: Open Humanities Press, 2012. Print.

Sallis, John. Foreword. Sojourns. Trans. John Panteleimon Manoussakis. Albany: SUNY Press, 2005. Print.

Schiavini, Cinzia. “Writing the Land: Horizontality, Verticality, and Deep Travel in William Least Heat-Moon’s PrairyErth.†RSA Journal: Rivista di Studi Nord Americani 15-16 (2004-2005): 93-113. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. c. 1611. New York: Barron’s Educational Series, 2002. Print.

“sojourn, n.†OED Online. Oxford University Press, June 2015. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.

Stein, Janice Gross. The Cult of Efficiency. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2001. Print.

Up in the Air. Dir. Jason Reitman. Paramount, 2009. DVD.

“Travel. As Much as you can. As far as you can. As long as you can. Life’s not meant to be lived in one place.†Lifestyle of the Unemployed. 17 Sept. 2013. Web. 30 Feb. 2017.

Wilson, E.O. Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. Print.

Young, Julian. Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography. New York: Cambridge, 2010. Print.

Zimmerman, Michael E. “Ontical Craving versus Ontological Desire.†From Phenomenology to Thought, Errancy, and Desire: Essays in Honour of William J. Richardson, S.J. Ed. Babette E. Babich. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995. Print. 501-523.

Published
2019-10-09
Issue
Vol. 16 No. 2 (2019): Fast Capitalism 16.2
Section
Articles

Copyright (c) 2019 Andrew Urie

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Authors of papers published in Fast Capitalism hold copyright to their work. Requests for permission to reprint should be directed to the author.

Creative Commons License
Fast Capitalism is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.