Phenomenology of Anxiety

This volume offers a thorough description of anxiety from a phenomenological perspective. Building on Bakhtin''s insights, the author develops the method of "phenomenological polyphony," which can do justice to the essential ambiguity of anxiety. In this polyphony, the voices of Kierkegaard, Husserl, Freud, Blumenberg, Heidegger, Sartre, Adorno, Derrida and Levinas are particularly recognizable. The book explores new perspectives on the complex relation between anxiety, fear, and trauma with reference to different disciplines, from art history to cultural anthropology, from psychopathology to theology, from literature to political philosophy.

When is anxiety justified? When does anxiety cease to function as an effective and reasonable signal preventing imminent threats, and when does it become an invasive projection of our own ghosts? This volume presents a deep philosophical inquiry into the affective phen