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This book explores the lived meanings of being a university educator from an existential perspective. The book enriches our understanding of educators´ experiences in light of Martin Heidegger´s early philosophy, and vice versa (opening our understanding of Heidegger´s philosophy through educators´ experiences). Also drawing on the philosophical insights of Hans-Georg Gadamer, the book situates the purposes and experiences of the ´educator´ in historical and contemporary contexts. In doing so, the author reveals that being a university educator is essentially characterised by conversation and time. Inspired by the author´s own experiences of teaching community development and sociology within a youth-work specific bachelor degree, the book invites educators to apply existential philosophy as a tool to reflect upon their own experiences and to reconnect with the question of what it means to be an educator in their shared world of practice. This thoughtful volume is sure to resonate with the experiences of readers who educate within a university context.

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Chapter 1. Introduction.

Chapter 2. Heidegger and the question of being.

Chapter 3. Being as conversation.

Chapter 4. Being as ´having-been´.

Chapter 5. Being as possibility.

Chapter 6. Conclusion.

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"What I found so rewarding about Spier´s approach is that he makes a concerted effort to render Heidegger´s language relevant, meaningful and accessible to the world of practical enquiry ... . it is the key contribution that this book makes to the question of what it means to be an educator that I think is of most significance to its readers." (Mo Mandic, International Journal of Lifelong Education, September, 2018)

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Joshua Spier is Research Associate in the College of Education, Psychology and Social Work at Flinders University, Australia. His research centres on hermeneutic phenomenological approaches to meaning in higher education and community development practice.

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