Shaun Gallagher, interviewed by Hannah Berry & Jessie Stanier

Welcome to the 100th episode of the BSP Podcast. To celebrate this milestone we have a specially recorded interview with Professor Shaun Gallagher (University of Memphis, USA, and University of Wollongong, Australia). Gallagher is interviewed by Jessica Stanier (Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health at the University of Exeter) and Hannah Berry (BSP Secretary).   “I’m really happy we’ve reached 100 episodes!” – writes Dr Matt Barnard, founder and editor of the BSP Podcast. “I started the podcast because I wanted to amplify the voice of our delegates at conferences. Phenomenology is an important movement in thought, challenging us to listen harder, and engage with the world and human experiences. As such, I’m delighted that Shaun Gallagher, who has done so much to advocate for phenomenology and communicate it clearly, agreed to be interviewed for this special episode. I’m also super grateful to Jessica Stanier and Hannah Berry. They came up with really interesting questions, leading to a unique and open discussion that I really enjoyed editing. I am sure our listeners will enjoy it too.”   BIOS:   Shaun Gallagher is the Lillian and Morrie Moss Professor of Excellence in Philosophy at the University of Memphis, USA, and Professorial Fellow at the School of Liberal Arts, University of Wollongong, Australia. His research is interdisciplinary and focuses on embodied cognition and the phenomenology of self, action, intention, and social interaction, He held the Humboldt Foundation Anneliese Maier Research Fellowship (2012-18). He has been Honorary Professor at Tromsø University (Norway), Durham University (UK) and the University of Copenhagen (Denmark). He has held visiting research positions at MRC: Centre for Cognition and Brain Sciences, Cambridge University; Ecole Normale Supériure, Lyon; CREA and Ecole Normale Supériure, Paris; Humboldt University, Berlin; Keeble College, Oxford University; and Sapienza - University of Rome. His publications include Action and Interaction (Oxford 2020); The Phenomenological Mind -3rd ed (Routledge 2020); Enactivist Interventions: Rethinking the Mind (Oxford 2017); The Neuro-phenomenology of Awe and Wonder (Palgrave Macmillan 2015); Phenomenology (Palgrave Macmillan 2012; 2nd ed in 2021); How the Body Shapes the Mind (Oxford 2005); Hermeneutics and Education (SUNY Press 1992); and as editor, the Oxford Handbook of the Self (2011); and co-editor The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition (2018). He is editor-in-chief of the journal Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. His books and articles have been translated into 14 different languages, and have been cited more than 29,000 times (Google Scholar). He served as principle investigator on grants from the European Science Foundation, Marie Curie Actions, the National Science Foundation, the Templeton Foundation; and has been co-PI on awards from the Australian Research Council, Marie Curie, Humboldt Foundation, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK).   Hannah Berry has recently completed her doctoral thesis on empathy from the University of Liverpool. The thesis is called ‘The Shoe Never Fits: a phenomenological revision of empathy and intersubjectivity’ and offers a critical analysis of phenomenological, psychological and biological descriptions of empathy and proposes a development to Husserl’s theory of analogising apprehension in order to describe an interpersonal experience that takes into account sociability as well as the subjective experience of self and other. Her interests are in psycho- and socio-linguistics, forensic linguistics, pragmatics, phenomenology and philosophy of mind. Hannah is the current secretary for the British Society for Phenomenology and is the lead tutor of the WEA’s North West refugee education programme.   Jessie Stanier is a PhD student at the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health at the University of Exeter. She takes an engaged approach to her study of phenomenology, ageing, and older age by collaborating with various people affected by the lived realities of ageing and caring. In her PhD thesis, she aims to shed new light on normative determinants of ageing and how they affect lived experiences and possibilities for older people. She co-hosted this year’s BSP conference online, and she is currently co-editing a Special Issue of Puncta: Journal of Critical Phenomenology on ‘Pandemic Politics & Phenomenology’.   The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, events, and podcast. Why not find out more, join the society, and subscribe to our journal the JBSP? https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/