The class that this paper is for introduces key critical concepts in our field such as Irony; Abstraction and Empathy; Repetition; Melancholia and Sublime Melancholia; The Sublime and Sublime Uselessness; Voices of Exile, Cunning and Silence. Phenomenological reduction and other reductions. Sense and Nonsense et cetera. These concepts will be the subject of a phenomenological analysis. They will be presented and illustrated with reference to contemporary architecture, art, literature, cinema and music. The students will participate in the considerations during the seminar and will be invited to read selected texts and to write a paper in which they will present and consider a strategy of their own choice. We will follow the path of thinking and constructing our own theoretical stand point rather than merely learning from the past. The agenda of this seminar is to provide the participants with the understanding and courage to construct their own Archimedian point – a point outside systems and conventions of our time, which will allow them to construct their own perspective, their own conceptual frame work in time.