Ken Liberman
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
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.