Module Description
This module offers a critical introduction to existentialism, one of the most influential philosophical and cultural movements of the twentieth century. Existentialism takes as its starting point an individual's existence and claims that thinking about human existence requires new categories not found in the conceptual repertoire of ancient or modern thought. While there is no consistent doctrine or methodology within existentialist philosophy, there are a number of common themes and problems, which revolve particularly around the issues of radical freedom, authenticity and nihilism. This module will trace the origins and development of existentialism in the 19th and 20th centuries through several key philosophical, social and literary thinkers: Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon, Ralph Ellison, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Albert Camus. Existential themes that will be critically explored through philosophical and literary texts include: nothingness, existence, facticity, angst, dread, being, bad faith, responsibility, despair, the Other, death, alienation, mass society and existence. Related social and political themes will be explored, including the influence of existentialism on questions related to political resistance, gender, race and religion.
Module Description
This module offers a critical introduction to phenomenology, one of the most important philosophical movements of the twentieth century. The development of phenomenology heralded a radically new way of doing philosophy, moving away from metaphysical speculation of so-called 'pseudo-problems' towards rich descriptions of the structures of concrete lived experience. In this module you will trace the origins and development of phenomenology across key thinkers and themes in the 20th century, starting with the development of the phenomenological method by Edmund Husserl at the turn of the 20th century. The module will systematically explore the distinctive development and use of phenomenology by several key 20th century thinkers including: Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Edith Stein, Frantz Fanon, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Emmanuel Levinas, as well as exploring key themes within contemporary traditions of applied, feminist and critical phenomenology. Themes that will be critically considered through a phenomenological lens include: intentionality, perception, empathy, consciousness, embodiment, intersubjectivity, self-consciousness, the lifeworld, sociality, ethics and emotion. Topics in contemporary applied, feminist and critical phenomenology will also be considered including: disability, illness, racialised experience, gendered experience, power and feminism. The module will offer you an important grounding in, and understanding of, the influential philosophical movement of phenomenology.