PHIL-296 Existentialism

Credits 3 / 3 Contact Hours
Prerequisite: Placement into RDNG-030 (ACSR-030) or completion of RDNG-016, ACLT-075 or ACLT-076
Existentialism is a philosophical movement focusing on the meaning of freedom absurdity authenticity life and death in a world in which modern scholarship and modern science have undercut the reasonableness of an unquestioned faith in God or in any externally given order. We will explore the ideas of major existentialist authors such as Soren Kierkegaard Friedrich Nietzsche Martin Heidegger Simone de Beauvoir Jean-Paul Sarte and Albert Camus as well as authors in the contemporary existentialist revival in particular Black existentialism as found in the works of African-American authors such as Lewis Gordon and Richard Wright.