Sancho Panza and don Quixote

the documentary and the phenomenological methods of analyzing works of art

Amalia Barboza

pp. 129-142

in: Michael Barber, Jochen Dreher (eds), The interrelation of phenomenology, social sciences and the arts, Berlin, Springer, 2014

Abstract

In this essay I attempt to compare two different methods of analyzing works of art: the documentary method of the sociologist Karl Mannheim and the phenomenological approach of Alfred Schutz. While both Mannheim and Schutz employ the concept of style, the actual meaning of their concepts of style is so different that comparing them may at first seem like a futile undertaking. I nevertheless argue that contrasting Mannheim's and Schutz's sociological approaches, emphasizing their unique features, offers a good strategy to map the fundamental differences between them.

Cited authors

Schütz Alfred

Mannheim Karl