Subjectivity, Historicity, Communality is a Helsinki-based network of scholars and doctoral students who are working in the broad field of contemporary Continental philosophy: phenomenology and post-phenomenology, post-structuralism, political theory and gender studies. The network is directed by Professor Sara Heinämaa and it focuses on topics such as embodiment and intersubjectivity, cognitive sciences and politics, modern rationality, its “crises” and critical reappropriations.
The SHC Community was established officially in 2011 for the International Evaluation of Research and Doctoral Training at the University of Helsinki 2005-2010 and is funded by the University of Helsinki for the period of 2013-2016. As a loose network of scholars located in different departments, the SHC organizes a wide variety of events, seminars, courses and workshops.
“The SHC aims at minimizing hierarchies and creating an open and collegial atmosphere between junior and senior scholars. Responsibilities, ideas, criticisms are shared. This is a fruitful way to work.” – The Panel for the International Evaluation of Research and Doctoral Training at the University of Helsinki 2005-2010
The unifying task of SHC is to understand contemporary developments in the discourse and debate on Europe as well as the founding ideas of European rationality, the ideas of science, democracy, and universalism. The aim is to address the multiple “crises” of European rationality by integrating the fields of philosophy, political theory, and gender studies. SHC therefore tackles many different topics: sexual difference, embodiment and perception, sensibility and aesthetics, norms and normality, origins and dynamics of communities, multiculturalism, political and philosophical universalism vs. particularism, modern rationality and its limits, and the history of European sciences. At the same time the operative concepts and methods of phenomenology are subjected to critical inspection and exposed to alternative frameworks, most importantly those of deconstruction and genealogy.
“The research agenda is well formulated in that it combines focus and flexibility. The research is characterized by high quality and high academic significance. It is also innovative. The effort to apply philosophical resources to the analysis and understanding of topical problems – combining a transcendental and an empirical approach – is promising.” -The Panel for the International Evaluation of Research and Doctoral Training at the University of Helsinki 2005-2010
Please contact Timo Miettinen for more details.
The director of the SHC Community, Sara Heinämaa, delivering a talk at Materialities and Materialisms in Contemporary Thought, University of Helsinki, June 2013.