Existentialism

Catalog description

This course introduces students to the evolution of Existentialism, with its kernel in mid-nineteenth century reflection on Christianity's loosening grip on culture, its influence by the early-twentieth century experience of war's utter and widespread destructiveness, and its development in mid-twentieth century industrial and capitalist modernity. It concerns especially what it means to define one¿s own life in light of social pressures, interpersonal conflict, and economic forces, with or without the aid of traditional or religious guidance. This that means the course focuses on metaphysical, moral, and social issues concerning reality, the nature of the self, the basis of values, and the relations between individuality and community, and studies philosophical treatises, imaginative literature, and other genres of writing. Representative authors include Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Marcel, Wright, Ellison, Jaspers, Fanon, Camus, Beauvoir, Sartre, and Lorraine Hansberry.