Weeks
1)
Sartre:
Existentialism is a Humanism
skim Earnshaw, ch. 1
2)
Camus:
The Stranger
Skim
Earnshaw, ch 6, and Sartre’s essay on
The Stranger
3)
Young:
The Death of God and the Meaning of Life,
Plato, Kant, Schopenhauer, pp. 1-43
Skim Young ch. 12
4)
Heidegger:
“Why Poets?” [200-240]
Young,
ch. 15
First
reflection paper: “Art and Making-Finding Meaning: one”
[due 2nd
class-day of wk 5]
5)
Tues:
writing day; then Heidegger: “The Origin of the Work of Art”
“Origin,”
[1-52] and Young ch 15
6)
Heidegger:
Dasein and Augenblick
Young
ch. 9; Earnshaw ch. 4
7)
Heidegger:
Critique of Metaphysics
“The
Age of the World Picture”
8)
Nietzsche:
The Birth of Tragedy and Blues [ ]
Young ch. 4
Second reflection paper:
“Art and Making-Finding Meaning: two”
[due 2nd class-day of wk 9]
9)
Tues:
writing day, then Nietzsche: Nihilism
Heidegger “Nietzsche’s word, ‘God is
dead.’”
10)
Nietzsche:
Creativity and Eternal Recurrence
11)
Nietzsche:
Morality and Our Next Self
12)
Kierkegaard:
God’s Death on Moriah
Third
reflection paper ”Finding/making meaning and self: three”
[due 2nd class-day of wk 13]
13)
Kierkegaard: Subjectivity and Abraham
14)
Kierkegaard: Repetition vs. Eternal Recurrence
15)
Kierkegaard: Existentialism and the Ethical
Sublime
Last Paper [due the day of the final exam in HL 501]
BOOKS:
Sartre:
Existentialism is a
Humanism, Yale, 978-0-300-11546-8
Camus:
The Stranger, Vintage, 0-679-72020-0
Heidegger:
Off the Beaten Track,
Nietzsche:
Basic Writings, Modern
Library, (2000) 10: 0679783393
Kierkegaard:
Fear and Trembling, Penguin (great
ideas); 10- 0143037579
Earnshaw,
Existentialism: a Guide for the Perplexed
Young, The Death of God and the Meaning of Life
Reflection
Papers: Existentialism asks a reader to
reflect for herself (or himself) on the meaning of any
claim or evocation or picture encountered in a text, or more broadly, in
experience. This means that although critical and detached textual critique has
its place, there’s also a place for personal, reflective, and open-ended
exploration. I look for both in your
papers. I also look for some integration
of materials. There’s no rule at play
here, but you should be able to follow up resonances among a number of passages
from more than a single author.
The first paper
should be about 4 pages double-spaced.
I’d like you to
have the second paper begin with a 1 page preface-review of your first paper:
what did the first paper try to evoke or establish, and how will the second paper
continue that line of thought or deviate from it? Your second paper, then, would be 5 pages in
length.
Your third paper
would use 1 page to recall what was evoked or established in your first two
papers, making it a 5 page paper.
The same pattern would hold for your 5 page final paper (which stands in for the final: there is no meeting on the day of the final).