AIS: Existentialism.

Catalog description

In this class we will explore why we are all soul-achingly anxious and depressed. Our conversation partners are a set of loosely associated thinkers who have come to be called the “existentialists,” figures like: Søren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, Simone Weil, Miguel de Unamuno, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre. While there are more academic reasons for gathering these figures under a common banner, the short of it is that each is passionately committed to interrogating our collective despair. It’s not all doom and gloom though: Taken together, the existentialists develop a powerful vision of redemptive love. Falling in love with this conception of love is the chief goal of this course.