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Course description

Existentialism was a major philosophical movement in post-war France. Its proponents, such as Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) and Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986), were accomplished as novelists, philosophers, playwrights, and memoirists. Decades later, it’s difficult to grasp the level of public interest and influence that existentialism had. 

Existentialism emphasizes the importance of human freedom in the face of material and ideological impingements on our capacity to act. We will read some classic existentialist texts. We will focus on their respective concepts of the self, agency, choice, subjectivity, choice, value, anguish, bad faith, and responsibility, while identifying impediments to freedom. 

We will also examine how existentialists reconsidered their early philosophical commitments in light of social and political engagements. More specifically, we will analyze how hierarchies in class, race, gender, and age in Western societies come to categorize some individuals as subjects (able to realize their free projects) and some individuals as others (dispossessed of the material and ideological means of realizing their freedom). 

Required readings

These required readings are available at the ����51 Bookstore:

• Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, trans. Bernard Fretchman (New York: Open Road, 2018), ISBN: 9781504054225.
• Simone de Beauvoir, A Very Easy Death, trans. Patrick O’Brian (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2023), ISBN: 180427044X.
• Albert Camus, The Stranger, trans. Matthew Ward (New York: Vintage, 1989). ISBN: 978-0679720201.

• Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism, ed. John Kulka (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). ISBN: 978-0300115468.

   

The following readings will be available on Blackboard:

• Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Richard Philcox (New York: Grove Press, 2004), 145–180. [“On National Culture”]
• Francis Jeanson, “Recrimination” (excerpts) [Unpublished translation of excerpts from “La Récrimination,” Les Temps Modernes, no. 28 (January 1948), 1172–1198].
• Francis Jeanson, “Sartre and the Black World.” [Unpublished translation of “Sartre et le monde noir,” Présence Africaine, No. 7 (1949), pp. 189–214.]
• Francis Jeanson, “Sartre: A Positive Betrayal.” [Unpublished translation of “Sartre: Une trahison positive,” Sud-Ouest (April 20, 1980), 34]
• Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. Hazel Barnes (New York: Washington Square Press, 1984), 87–91; 96–117. [Part I, Chapter 2: Bad Faith]
• Jean-Paul Sartre, “Black Orpheus,” in Aronson and van den Hoven, eds., We Have Only This Life to Live: The Selected Essays of Jean-Paul Sartre 1939–1975 (New York: NYRB Press, 2013), 149–186.
• Jean-Paul Sartre, “The Respectful Prostitute,” in No Exit and Three Other Plays (New York: Vintage International, 1989), 245–275.

Reading Schedule (Subject to Change) – Open to the Public

Faculty

The Summer Institute for Continental Philosophy is directed by four ����51 faculty, philosophers who have specialized in this area of Philosophy:

Dr. Devin Zane Shaw completed his PhD at the University of Ottawa. He is the author of three books, Philosophy of Antifascism: Punching Nazis and Fighting White Supremacy (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2020), Egalitarian Moments: From Descartes to Rancière (Bloomsbury, 2016) and Freedom and Nature in Schelling's Philosophy of Art (Bloomsbury, 2010). He has also published articles in the area of political philosophy. 

Dr. John Bruin received his PhD from Guelph/McMaster with a dissertation on Husserl which was subsequently published by the University of Ottawa Press in 2001 under the title Homo Interrogans. Dr. Bruin has also published articles on Heidegger.

Dr. Robert Nicholls (retired) completed his PhD at the University of Waterloo in 1988 with a dissertation entitled Sense and Existence: Heidegger 1925-29. Dr. Nicholls has published essays on Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger, as well as in the areas of literary theory, philosophy of education and Eastern philosophy.

Dr. Mano Daniel (retired) completed his doctorate at the University of Waterloo with a dissertation on the work of Hannah Arendt. He co-edited the book Phenomenology of the Cultural Disciplines, and  has written papers in the areas of  environmental sustainability; philosophy of biography; philosophy and public policy; and the nature of apology.

Past summer institutes