This book features papers written by renowned international scholars that analyze the interdependence of art, phenomenology, and social science. The papers show how the analysis of the production as well as the perception and interpretation of art work needs to take into consideration the subjective viewpoint of the artist in addition to that of the interpreter. Phenomenology allows a description of the subjectively centered life-world of the individual actorartist or interpreterand the objective structures of literature, music, and the aesthetic domain in general.

The perspective of social science serves to reconstruct the socio-historical structure involved in the creation and reception of the art work. The authors concentrate on this specific theoretical focus which combines both phenomenology and social science and offers an innovative framework for the analysis of works of art from the fields of literature, music, visual arts, photography, and film. Some of the contributions present creative interpretations of a variety of distinct art works in addition to the realization of theoretical reflections on the interdependence of arts, phenomenology, and social science.

This book features papers that were presented at the international and interdisciplinary conference Phenomenology, Social Sciences, and the Arts, held at the University of Konstanz, May 2009, in commemoration of philosopher and social scientist Alfred Schutz, the developer of phenomenologically oriented sociology. It will appeal to researchers, scholars, and students in phenomenology, social sciences, art theory, and the arts. 

Introduction.- Aesthetics and the Social Sciences.- Irrelevant Spheres and Vacancies of Artworks; Masato Kimura.- Cultural Science in Literary Light; Lester Embree.- Projection, Imagination, and Novelty: Toward a Theory of Creative Action Based in Schutz; Hubert Knoblauch.- Imagination and the Social Sciences; Hisashi Nasu.- Functional Purposelessness: The Practical Meaning of Aesthetics; Hans-Georg Soeffner.- Art as a Paradoxical Form of Communication; Ilja Srubar.- When Sociology Meets the Work of Art: Analytical and Frameworks to Study Artistic Production and Reception; Anna Lisa Tota.- Literature.- Crossing the Finite Provinces of Meaning: Experience and Metaphorizing of Literature and Arts; Gerd Sebald.- Sancho Panza and Don Quijote: The Documentary and the Phenomenological Method of Analyzing Art Works; Amalia Barboza.- Literature as Societal Therapy: Appresentation,Epoché, andBeloved; Michael Barber.-The Man without Qualities and the Problem of Multiple RealitiesAlfred Schutz and Robert Musil Revisited; Martin Endress.- Entangled into Histories or the Narrative Grounds of Multiple Realities; Annette Hilt.- The Universe that Others Call the Library: Reconstructing the Symbolic Mystifications of the World of Everyday Life; Jochen Dreher.- Music.- The Tuning-in Relationship: from a Social Theory of Music towards a Philosophical Understanding of Intersubjectivity; Carlos Belvedere.- Mutual Tuning-In Relationship and Phenomenological Psychology; Chung-Chi Yu.- Music, Meaning, and Sociality: From the Standpoint of a Social Phenomenologist; Andreas Göttlich.- Artistic Practice, Methodology and Subjectivity: The "I Can" As Practical Possibility and Original Consciousness;Andreas Georg Stascheit.- Musical Foundation of Interaction. Music as Intermediary Medium; Mototaka Mori.- Film and Photography.- Interpreting Film: The Case of Casablanca; George Psathas.- A Phenomenological Inquiry ofRashomon; Kenichi Kawano.- The Art of Making Photos: Some Phenomenological Reflections; Thomas S. Eberle.