The New Orleans Sniper

A Phenomenological Case Study of Constituting the Other

By (author) Frances Chaput Waksler

Publication date:

15 October 2010

Length of book:

114 pages

Publisher

University Press of America

Dimensions:

234x154mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780761853893

On January 7, 1973, shots were fired from Howard Johnson's Motel in New Orleans, LA. Six were killed, ten wounded. After the first sniper was killed, the search continued for others. A thorough police investigation, however, concluded that there had been only one —- whose body was found on the motel roof. How did the idea of multiple snipers emerge? How was it decided that there had been only one after all? More generally, how does anyone come to a decision about the existence or nonexistence of another person? In prose both analytic and engaging, Waksler traces the course of this event and the claims and counterclaims made in the search to explain it.

Please visit Frances Chaput Waksler's website for additional information regarding her biography, publications, and more:
http://www.franceswaksler.com/

Chapter 1 Preface
Chapter 2 Acknowledgments
Chapter 3 Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 4 Chapter 2: Constituting the Other: The Context
Chapter 5 Chapter 3: Constituting the Other: The Evidence
Chapter 6 Chapter 4: The Aftermath: Unconstituting the Other
Chapter 7 Chapter 5: Conclusion
Chapter 8 Appendix: Witnesses' Sightings and Descriptions of Sniper(s)
Chapter 9 Bibliography
Chapter 10 Index

Demonstrates, empirically, the process of continually constituting, unconstituting, and re-constituting —- of persons, places, and things —- that is central to Edmund Husserl's phenomenology. The great value…is its application of a philosophical idea to understanding a concrete event: how we sort through the enormous detail of a happening in order to say it is this way rather than that way.