Existentialism

FAIN: FV-50245-10

Mount Holyoke College (South Hadley, MA 01075-1423)
Thomas E. Wartenberg (Project Director: March 2010 to July 2016)

A four-week seminar for sixteen school teachers to study philosophical treatises and other works relating to Existentialism.

Existentialism, an important philosophical movement in the twentieth century, remains influential to this day. This seminar will acquaint school teachers with the basic philosophical ideas of Existentialist philosophy by introducing them to the writings of such thinkers as Soren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and Franz Fanon. In addition to philosophical treatises, readings will be drawn from novels and films will be shown. The Existentialists are known for their emphasis on the actual lived experience of human beings and their attempt to show that there are more authentic possibilities for living than those chosen by most people. The seminar will explore how the Existentialists argue for this view of life and assess its validity both historically and for our contemporary society.