What we’re about
This group is for anyone interested in exploring literature, philosophy, and cinema through occasional film viewings and reading discussions that will be centered around classic and contemporary works of (primarily) Western Philosophy, Fiction, and Cinema. We will not only look at the traditional cast of existential characters (Sartre, de Beauvoir, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Camus, Kafka), but will also be very open to other work within the European philosophical tradition that is derivative of, influential to, or critical towards "existential" philosophy. Special consideration will also be given to works within the "phenomenological" tradition. Join us in this exciting intellectual endeavor! Get ready for fun, riveting, and thoughtful discussions about society, values, faith, spirituality, truth, experience, subjectivity, and existence (of course).
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https://www.facebook.com/groups/ExistentialismPhenomenologyLiterature/
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- Nietzsche, Twilight of the IdolsAxelrad Beer Garden, Houston, TX
For our May meeting, we will discuss Twilight of the Idols, one of Friedrich Nietzsche's last published essays. Although published towards the end of his career, it includes themes which permeate all periods of his philosophy and is a great introduction and/or summation of his work.
We'll be at Axelrad, sitting outside on the upstairs deck.
Below is a link to a PDF version of the reading, followed by a brief description of the work:
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD READING
"Twilight of the Idols is a ‘grand declaration of war’ on reason, psychology and theology that combines highly charged personal attacks on his contemporaries with a lightning tour of his own philosophy. Nietzsche's own unabashed appraisal of this late work intended that it serve as a short introduction to the whole of his philosophy, and at the same time as the most synoptic of all his books. It bristles with a register of vocabulary derived from physiology, pathology, symptomatalogy and medicine. Twilight of the Idols presents a vivid, compressed overview of many of Nietzsche’s mature ideas, including his attack on Plato’s Socrates and on the Platonic legacy in Western philosophy and culture."
- Jean-Paul Sartre, NauseaBoheme, Houston, TX
The summer reading season will be in full swing for our June meeting, where we will discuss Jean-Paul Sartre's first novel, Nausea (French: La Nausée). Originally published in 1938, the work presents Sartre's early, "existential" philosophy through the thoughts and experiences of the novel's protagonist.
We will be sitting inside (in a small room near the front entrance of the venue).
Below is a link to a PDF version of the reading, followed by a brief description of the work:
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE READING
"Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form he ruthlessly catalogs his every feeling and sensation. His thoughts culminate in a pervasive, overpowering feeling of nausea which 'spreads at the bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of our time ― the time of purple suspenders and broken chair seats; it is made of wide, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain.' Roquentin's efforts to come to terms with life, his philosophical and psychological struggles, give Sartre the opportunity to dramatize the tenets of his Existentialist creed.
Winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature (though he declined to accept it), Jean-Paul Sartre ― philosopher, critic, novelist, and dramatist ― holds a position of singular eminence in the world of French letters. La Nausée, his first and best novel, is a landmark in Existential fiction and a key work of the twentieth century."
- Albert Camus, The StrangerBoheme, Houston, TX
Summer reading continues this July, with Albert Camus' classic "absurdist" novel The Stranger. Originally published in 1942, Camus' first published novel remains his most famous and popular work by far.
For our discussion, we will be meeting at Boheme and sitting inside (in the small side room near the front entrance). Below is a link to the reading followed by a bried description of the work:
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE READING
"With the intrigue of a psychological thriller, The Stranger—Camus's masterpiece—gives us the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach. The Stranger is a strikingly modern text, and Camus’s stoical anti-hero and devious narrator remains one of the key expressions of a postwar Western malaise, and one of the cleverest exponents of a literature of ambiguity.
Behind the subterfuge, Camus explores what he termed 'the nakedness of man faced with the absurd' and describes the condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion that characterized so much of twentieth-century life.
Considered a classic of twentieth-century literature, The Stranger has received critical acclaim for Camus's philosophical outlook, absurdism, syntactic structure, and existentialism (despite Camus's rejection of the label), particularly within its final chapter. Le Monde ranked The Stranger as number one on its 100 Books of the 20th Century."
- Martin Buber, I and ThouBoheme, Houston, TX
For August's meeting, we will begin our three-month exploration of Martin Buber by discussing part one of his I and Thou. Originally published in 1923, it is Buber’s best-known work and is considered his magnum opus, setting forth a critique of modern objectification in relationships with others.
We'll be sitting inside Boheme (in the side room next to the front entrance). Below is a link to a PDF of the reading, followed by a brief description of the work:
CLICK HERE TO VIEW OR DOWNLOAD THE READING
"Buber's main proposition is that we may address existence in two ways: (1) that of the "I" towards an "It", towards an object that is separate in itself, which we either use or experience; (2) that of the 'I' towards 'Thou', in which we move into existence in a relationship without bounds. One of the major themes of the book is that human life finds its meaningfulness in relationships. All of our relationships, Buber contends, bring us ultimately into relationship with God, who is the Eternal Thou.
Considered a landmark of twentieth-century intellectual history, this is Martin Buber's classic treatment of the religious and social dimensions of the human personality."
