liberman

Curriculum Vitae

Link

Full Name

Kenneth Liberman

First Name

Ken

Last Name

Liberman

Affiliation

Emeritus

Title

Professor Emertius

Office

722 PLC

Office Hours

Retired: No office hours.

Departments

Asian Studies

Sociology

Affiliated Departments

Asian Studies

Religious Studies

Profile Section

Biography

Professor Liberman received his Phd from the University of California, San Diego in 1981. He joined the University of Oregon in 1983. His specialties are ethnomethodology, intercultural communication, race relations, and social phenomenology.

Liberman has completed ethnomethodological studies of mundane interaction among traditional Australian Aboriginal people (Understanding Interaction in Central Australia, Routledge), the practices of reasoning of Tibetan scholar-monks (Dialectical Practice in Tibetan Philosophical Culture, Rowman & Littlefield), and the uses of objectivity in coffee tasting by professional coffee tasters in 14 countries (Tasting Coffee, SUNY Press). He provided a detailed ethnomethodological account and assessment of sophistry based on a video-recorded Tibetan debate in his Husserl’s Criticism of Reason (Lexington Books). His More Studies in Ethnomethodology (SUNY Press) won the Best Book Award from the EMCA Section of the American Sociological Association.

He is presently undertaking a long-term comparative study of negative dialectics in Tibetan Buddhist and postmodern epistemological practice.

Lectures and Seminars

Series: Phenomenology for Ethnomethodologists

1. “Husserl for Phenomenologists”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaQ5n09rX7A

2. “Heidegger for Ethnomethodologists: Being and Time, Section 7(v),”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDGRs4E3eFs

3. “Heidegger for Ethnomethodologists: Being and Time, Sections 15 & 16”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbE4oXhYPZM

4. “Heidegger for Ethnomethodologists: Being and Time on Attunement”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUUqNM42V3k

5. “Heidegger for Ethnomethodologists: Being and Time on Understanding”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agF-irQ50ls

6. “Merleau-Ponty for Ethnomethodologists: ‘The Intertwining – The Chiasm’ Part 1”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS26Z6VSYmE

7. “Merleau-Ponty for Ethnomethodologists: ‘The Intertwining – The Chiasm’ Part 2”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jKspZwMXDM

8. “The Documentary Method of Interpretation: Mannheim and Garfinkel, Part 1”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOja3aFTdbs

9. “The Documentary Method of Interpretation: Mannheim and Garfinkel, Part 2”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtI5lOTynU0

Series: A Guide to Ethnomethodology’s Program by Harold Garfinkel

1. “Author’s Introduction,” Chapters 1 & 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEBeaaYvjPs

2. Chapters 3, 4 & 5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAmHHgVMq3M

3. Chapters 6 & 7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdYj2JS1YdM

4. Chapters 8 & 9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wznVAP-ORUo

Lecture: “Two Paragraphs by Harold Garfinkel”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cBChObsKOw

Lecture: “Making Coffee Taste Descriptors Objective” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpf10bwILm8

Lecture: “The Status of Analytic Thinking in Middle Way Buddhist philosophy”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-Rpl1d-_mg

Interview: Kenneth Liberman on Challenging Analytic Slogans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd_RYHOSif0

Lecture: “An Introduction to Ethnomethodology,” at Aalborg University, Denmark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_58tsduoFQ

Lecture: “Rules as Ethnomethods: the surfers’ lineup,” University of Southern Denmark, Kolding, Denmark
http://emca-legacy.info/rules.html

Research Interests

practices of reasoning in non-Western societies
intercultural communication
cross cultural studies of self and identity
neocolonialism and the survival of indigenous cultures

Teaching Areas

ethnomethodology
race and ethnic relations
phenomenology and postmodernism

Publications

Liberman, K. (2024). “Rules as Instructed Actions: The Case of the Surfers’ Lineup.” In M. Lynch and O. Lindwall (Eds.), Instructed and Instructive Actions: The Situated Production, Reproduction, and Subversion of Social Order, 100-117. Routledge Press.

Liberman, K. (in press). “Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty” appears in the Routledge International Handbook of Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis.

Liberman, K. (in press). “Negative Dialectics in Madhyamaka Buddhist Practice” is part of the Festschrift, Knowledge and Truth in an Empty World: Essays on Epistemology and Madhyamaka in Honor of Tom Tillemans (Boston: Wisdom Publications)

Liberman, K. (2023). “Rereading ‘Galileo’s Inclined Plane Demonstration,’” in The Anthem Companion to Harold Garfinkel. Edited by Philippe Sormani and Dirk vom Lehn, London: Anthem Press, pp. 201-214.

Liberman, K. (2023). Il Gusto del Caffe (Italian translation of Tasting Coffee: An Inquiry into Objectivity). Edizioni ETS. A Korean translation, published by Coffee Libre, is also forthcoming.