Camus, Sartre, Beauvoir, and Current Social Debates

The writings of Albert Camus (1913-1960) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), both Nobel Prize winners, and Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986), winner of the prestigious Goncourt Prize, are all representative of French existentialism and have made a lasting impact. Their ideas resonate today on a number of fronts that still cause lively debate, among them antisemitism, racism, epidemics, terrorism, suicide, feminism, capital punishment, authoritarianism, and ageism. These writers are also masters of thought and expression. We study their creative works aesthetically and intellectually, and follow their mode of philosophical thinking closely as they develop such concepts as freedom, the absurd, revolt, justice, individual responsibility, ethics, authenticity, committed writing and action, and the appeal to the conscience. Among works to be studied by Camus are The Myth of Sisyphus, The Guest, Reflections on the Guillotine, The Plague, and The Fall; by Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism, No Exit, Anti-Semite and Jew, and What is Literature?; and by Beauvoir, The Second Sex, The Monologue, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Coming of Age. Most of the works are read in their entirety, the very long ones in carefully selected excerpts. Students write one-page opinion papers to help them crystallize their thoughts and prepare for class discussion.