The Bulgarian Phenomenological Center (BPC) was initiated by Prof. Dr. Yvanka B. Raynova in 1995 at the former Institute for Philosophical Research of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IPR-BAS) as a research group within the project "Phenomenology and Post-Phenomenology". The BPC became the main entity of the Department for Contemporary Philosophy. It aimed to promote phenomenology research on the key figures and all versions of phenomenology (transcendental, existential, hermeneutic, material etc.).
The research projects were conducted in three main directions focusing on the studies of classics of phenomenology (Husserl, Scheler, Heidegger, Stein, Sartre, Beauvoir, Lévinas, Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur etc.), on the "Austrian context" of phenomenology (Brentano, Meinong, Landgrebe, Schütz a. o.), and on the relationship between phenomenology and other non-phenomenological or post-phenomenological currents like deconstruction, post-structuralism, post-modernism, feminism etc.
The activities of the BPC were realized through research projects, the publication of the book series "Studies in Phenomenology, Hermeneutics and Contemporary Thought", the International Phenomenology List etc, the edition and translation of fundamental phenomenological texts, a permanent Seminar, the organization of lectures and conferences, the maintenance of a digital library, and through cooperation in network building.
A central place in the activities of the BPC took the international cooperation and exchange: The BPC was one of the founding members of the Organization of Phenomenological Organizations (OPO), and maintained contacts with diverse European and American Phenomenological Societies.
After the closing of the Institute for Philosophical Research, which fused with two other Institutes in the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IPS-BAS), the BPC has been (re)institutionalized within the Doctoral Program of Contemporary Philosophy. Its public activities conflate actually with those of the Bulgarian Phenomenology Association (BFO-Fenomenologia), which is the umbrella-organisation, and this is in many respects a gain.
BFO-Fenomenologia, alias the Bulgarian Phenomenology Association, is a philosophical community within the Bulgarian Philosophical Society (BPS), which was founded in 2015. The same year (November 6-7) the Faculty of Philosophy of Sofia University and the BPS organized the conference “Phenomenologies: The Legacies of Edmund Husserl”. BFO-Fenomenologia was established at the conference as an alliance of all Bulgarian scholars interested in phenomenology and several phenomenology groups. Thus, BFO-Fenomenologia includes actually the activities of the the Bulgarian Phenomenological Center (BPC), the Phenomenology Atelier (PhA), and other squads. This is to say that, formally established in 2015, the Association has a longer history that dates back to the early 1990ies when the first phenomenology cercles and seminars emerged in Bulgaria.
