Existentialism

FAIN: FV-50357-13

Mount Holyoke College (South Hadley, MA 01075-1423)
Thomas E. Wartenberg (Project Director: March 2013 to March 2015)

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

Existentialism, an important philosophical movement in the twentieth century, remains influential to this day. This seminar will acquaint participants with the basic philosophical ideas of Existentialism by introducing them to the writings of such thinkers as Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, 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 plays, and films will be shown each week. The Existentialists are known for their emphasis on the actual lived experience of human beings and outlining more authentic possibilities for living than those people ordinarily choose. The seminar will explore how the Existentialists argue for this view of life and it will assess Existentialism’s validity both historically and for our contemporary society.

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