Phenomenology 2005

Volume 5, Issue Part 2, 2007

Selected Essays from North America Part 2

“A Strange Current of Sympathy and Knowledge”
The Experience of “Teched” as Portrayed by American Novelist and Agrarian Reformer Louis Bromfield

In this essay, I draw on one short story by the American writer and agrarian reformer Louis Bromfield (1896-1956) to examine phenomenologically the experiential dimensions of “teched”—a colloquial word used by Bromfield to refer to a capacity for experiencing an intuitive intimacy with things, creatures, and landscapes such that the boundaries of self and other dissolve. I argue that this mode of encounter might be useful today in facilitating a deeper sense of care and concern for the natural world.