This anthology provides a history of the systemization and canonization of existentialism, a quintessentially antisystemic mode of thought. Situating existentialism within the history of ideas, it features new readings on the most influential works in the existential canon, exploring their formative contexts and the cultural dialogues of which they were a part.
Emphasizing the multidisciplinary and global nature of existential arguments, the chosen texts relate to philosophy, religion, literature, theater, and culture and reflect European, Russian, Latin American, African, and American strains of thought. Readings are grouped into three thematic categories: national contexts, existentialism and religion, and transcultural migrations that explore the reception of existentialism. The volume explains how literary giants such as Dostoevsky and Tolstoy were incorporated into the existentialist fold and how inclusion into the canon recast the work of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, and it describes the roles played by Jaspers and Heidegger in Germany and the Paris School of existentialism in France. Essays address not only frequently assigned works but also underappreciated discoveries, underscoring their vital relevance to contemporary critical debate. Designed to speak to a new generation's concerns, the collection deploys a diverse range of voices to interrogate the fundamental questions of the human condition.
- Contents
- Introduction by Jonathan Judaken
- Part 1 (Trans)NationalContexts
- 1. Russian Existentialism, or Existential Russianism by Val Vinokur
- 2. German Existentialism and the Persistence of Metaphysics, Weber, Jaspers, Heidegger by Peter E. Gordon
- 3. Sisyphus’s Progeny, Existentialism in France by Jonathan Judaken
- 4. Punching Through the Pasteboard Masks, American Existentialism by George Cotkin
- 5. Angst Across the Channel, Existentialism in Britain by Martin Woessner
- 6. Existentialisms in the Hispanic and Latin American Worlds, El Quixote and Its Existential Children by Eduardo Mendieta
- Part 2 Existentialism and Religion
- 7. Fear and Trembling and the Paradox of Christian Existentialism by George Pattison
- 8. Jewish Co-Existentialism, Being with the Other by Paul Mendes-Flohr
- 9. Camus the Unbeliever, Living Without God by Ronald Aronson
- Part 3 Migrations
- 10. Anxiety and Secularization, Søren Kierkegaard and the Twentieth-Century Invention of Existentialism by Samuel Moyn
- 11. Rethinking the “Existential” Nietzsche in Germany, Löwith, Jaspers, Heidegger by Charles Bambach
- 12. Situating Frantz Fanon’s Account of Black Experienceby Robert Bernasconi
- 13. Simone de Beauvoir in Her Times and Ours, The Second Sex and Its Legacy in French Feminist Thought by Debra Bergoffen
- 14. The “Letter on Humanism”, Reading Heidegger in France by Ethan Kleinberg
- Contributors
- Index
Text
Audio
Adobe DRM
Login to your account