Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

An exploration of the characteristic ways in which the humanities, with its emphasis on expression, belief and tradition, presents important philosophical concepts. Based upon an interdisciplinary selection of texts drawn from history, philosophy, literature and the arts. Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

Phenomenology and Existentialism:
Being, Identity, and the Politics of the Senses

In this course, we will study classic texts and later developments of Phenomenology and Existentialism, the traditions of philosophical thought that shaped European continental philosophy in the 20th century and informed debates in literature, cinema, and the arts.  

What is being-in-the-world? How does identity relate to difference? Does language bear on experience? Is cognition a purely mental process or is it related to the senses, spatiality, or embodiment? Does  intersubjectivity partake of consciousness? Does truth exist in the lifeworld or in the perception of the subject? Do we have freedom in our choices? Can we achieve an authentic life? In discussing these questions, we will learn to understand the historical conditions under which the emergence of Phenomenology and Existentialism became possible, the genesis of an interrogation method that changed the course of philosophy, and the apparent paradox of philosophies of subjectivity concerned with social and political life, but we will also learn to examine philosophical arguments and relate them to everyday experience.  

Themes will be developed from the work of central figures of these intertwined philosophical traditions (i.e., Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Kojève’s reading of Hegel, Heidegger, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, and Fanon) and creative writers (Dostoevsky, Ralph Ellison, and Camus). Their ideas will be placed in conversation with the more recent developments of cultural theory, from Elizabeth Grosz and Sara Ahmed in feminist and queer theory to Cristina Sharpe in Black theory, but also creative writing (Anne Carson) and films (Von Trier and Tarkovsky).  

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

By the end of the course, students will be able to: 

1. Engage in the critical perspectives of the philosophies of Phenomenology and Existentialism through the work of their main representatives, and understand the historical and theoretical contexts out of which they emerge. 
2. Examine critiques and debates generated by this philosophical work, including their influence on contemporary debates about human life and society. 
3. Gain an understanding of the way in which Phenomenology and Existentialism inform current theories about the social world, individual emotions or social and political emotions (including extreme forms thereof, e.g., revenge), ethical choices and agency, and transformations in individual and social life.  
4. Recognize the limits of their own subjective perspectives. 
5. Use a phenomenological and existentialist lens to understand the ways in which literature, art, and cinema help “make visible” and “felt” the intangible and the non-representable of pain, grief, suffering, and pleasure, thus making us subject to the responsibility for the other.  
6. Express their ideas clearly and construct an effective, well-structured argument in their writing. 

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

RECOMMENDED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: