Heidegger and the Lived Experience of Being a University Educator

'A highly useful and deeply touching account of how real conversation can contribute to the development of genuine professional relations.'
—Nel Noddings, Stanford University, USA

This book explores the lived meanings of being a university educator from an existential perspective. The book enriches our understanding of educators' experiences in light of Martin Heidegger's early philosophy, and vice versa (opening our understanding of Heidegger's philosophy through educators' experiences). Also drawing on the philosophical insights of Hans-Georg Gadamer, the book situates the purposes and experiences of the ‘educator’ in historical and contemporary contexts. In doing so, the author reveals that being a university educator is essentially characterised by conversation and time. Inspired by the author’s own experiences of teaching community development and sociology within a youth-work specific bachelor degree, the book invites educators toapply existential philosophy as a tool to reflect upon their own experiences and to reconnect with the question of what it means to be an educator in their shared world of practice. This thoughtful volume is sure to resonate with the experiences of readers who educate within a university context.
Joshua Spier is Research Associate in the College of Education, Psychology and Social Work at Flinders University, Australia. His research centres on hermeneutic phenomenological approaches to meaning in higher education and community development practice.