This course will involve an in-depth study of those writers who have figured prominently in the philosophical movement referred to as existentialism. In this course,we will examine their views regarding the human person in her/his existence. We will explore such existential themes as the irreducibility of subjective experience, the attempt to free human action and thought from ideally or socially mandated forms of normativity, the meaning of human freedom and whether existentialism can provide moral guidance, whether life has an inherent or ultimate meaning and/or how we are to determine such meaning, and whether existentialism is, as Sartre says, a humanism. In this exploration we seek both to situate existentialism within the history of intellectual and popular thought and to determine the relevance of existentialism in and for our lives and our contemporary milieu. In order to adequately accomplish these tasks, our reading of primary philosophical texts by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Camus will be supplemented with film. Full length feature films will be viewed and discussed in order to enhance the students’ ability to recognize the way in which existential themes find expression in life andart.
