Situating Existentialism: Key Texts in Context

441 Pages·2012·3.059 MB·English

by  Jonathan Judaken, Robert Bernasconi (eds.)

B situat i ng Key texts
e
“If exIstentIalIsm had any one overriding aim, it was to convince us that rnJu
we can transcend our contexts, defy convention, and rebel against histori- ad in Context
cal destiny. Yet, with the passage of time, existentialism has seemed more sca
ok
and more an expression of a specific moment and milieu that are no longer ne ExistEntialism
our own. these learned and insightful essays provide ample evidence of the i, en &
d
parallax vision needed to situate existentialism in its multiple temporal and
s
.
spatial contexts while allowing us to believe it may still have enduring mean-
ing beyond them all.”—martin jay, univeristy of california, berkeley
s
i
thIs anthology provides a history of the systemization and canonization
t
of existentialism, a quintessentially antisystemic mode of thought. situating
u
existentialism within the history of ideas, it features new readings on the most
influential works in the existential canon, exploring their formative contexts a
and the cultural dialogues of which they were a part.
t
Emphasizing the multidisciplinary and global nature of existential argu-
i
ments, the chosen texts relate to philosophy, religion, literature, theater, and
n
culture and reflect European, Russian, Latin American, African, and American
strains of thought. Readings are grouped into three thematic categories: na- g
tional contexts, existentialism and religion, and transcultural migrations that
explore the reception of existentialism. the volume explains how literary gi-
ants such as Dostoevsky and tolstoy were incorporated into the existentialist E
fold and how inclusion into the canon recast the work of Kierkegaard and x
nietzsche, and it describes the roles played by Jaspers and Heidegger in ger-
i
many and the Paris school of existentialism in France. Essays address not only
s
frequently assigned works but also underappreciated discoveries, underscor-
t
ing their vital relevance to contemporary critical debate. Designed to speak
E
to a new generation’s concerns, the collection deploys a diverse range of
voices to interrogate the fundamental questions of the human condition. n
Jonathan Judaken is spence l. Wilson Chair in Humanities at Rhodes t
College. He is the author of Jean-Paul Sartre and the Jewish Question: Anti- i
a
antisemitism and the Politics of the French Intellectual and the editor of Race
After Sartre: Anti-racism, Africana Existentialism, Postcolonialism and Naming
l
Race, Naming Racisms.
i
s
RobeRt beRnasconI is the Edwin Erle sparks Professor of Philosophy at Penn
m
state university and the author of two books on Heidegger. His most recent
publication is How to Read Sartre. He has edited or coedited numerous col-
lections on levinas, including The Cambridge Companion to Levinas, and on
the critical philosophy of race, including Race.
Cover image: Wols (alfred Otto Wolfgang schulze), Komposition, 1947. © aRs, nY. bpk, Berlin /
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, germany / Photo by Elke Walford / art Resource, nY.
C
Cover design: milenda nan Ok lee o
lu
m
columbIa unIVeRsIty PRess / neW yoRk
b
cup.columbia.edu ia
Jonathan Judaken & Robert Bernasconi, editors
PRintED in tHE u.s.a.
s i t u a t i n g e x i s t e n t i a l i s m

Situating Existentialism
key texts in context
edited by jonathan judaken and robert bernasconi
columbia university press new york
columbia university press
Publishers Since 1893
new york chichester, west sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2012 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Situating existentialism : key texts in context / edited by Jonathan Judaken and Robert
Bernasconi.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-231-14774-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-231-14775-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) —
isbn 978-0-231-51967-0 (e-book)
1. Existentialism. I. Judaken, Jonathan, 1968– II. Bernasconi, Robert.
b819.s546 2012
142′.78—dc23
2012001709
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper.
This book is printed on paper with recycled content.
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author
nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the
manuscript was prepared.
Contents
Introduction—1
Jonathan Judaken
part 1. (trans)national contexts
1. Russian Existentialism, or Existential Russianism—37
Val Vinokur
2. German Existentialism and the Persistence of Metaphysics:
Weber, Jaspers, Heidegger—65
Peter E. Gordon
3. Sisyphus’s Progeny: Existentialism in France—89
Jonathan Judaken
4. Punching Through the Pasteboard Masks:
American Existentialism—123
George Cotkin
5. Angst Across the Channel: Existentialism in Britain—145
Martin Woessner
6. Existentialisms in the Hispanic and Latin American Worlds:
El Quixote and Its Existential Children—180
Eduardo Mendieta
part 2. existentialism and religion
7. Fear and Trembling and the Paradox of Christian
Existentialism—211
George Pattison
vi—contents
8. Jewish Co-Existentialism: Being with the Other—237
Paul Mendes-Flohr
9. Camus the Unbeliever: Living Without God—256
Ronald Aronson
part 3. migrations
10. Anxiety and Secularization: Søren Kierkegaard and the Twentieth-
Century Invention of Existentialism—279
Samuel Moyn
11. Rethinking the “Existential” Nietzsche in Germany: Löwith,
Jaspers, Heidegger—305
Charles Bambach
12. Situating Frantz Fanon’s Account of Black Experience—336
Robert Bernasconi
13. Simone de Beauvoir in Her Times and Ours: The Second Sex
and Its Legacy in French Feminist Thought—360
Debra Bergoffen
14. The “Letter on Humanism”: Reading Heidegger in France—386
Ethan Kleinberg
List of Contributors—415
Index—419
s i t u a t i n g e x i s t e n t i a l i s m

Introduction
Jonathan Judaken
A philosophizing that begins by casting light on the situation remains
in flux because the situation is nothing but a ceaseless flow. . . . If I take
the illumination of the situation for the starting point of philosophizing,
I renounce objective explanations that would deduce existence from
principles as one whole being. Instead each objective thought structure
has its own function.
Awaking to myself, in my situation, I raised the question of being.
—Karl Jaspers, “Philosophizing Starts with Our Situation,”
in Philosophy, vol. 1
Existentialism Is an Anti-Ism
Situating Existentialism is a history of the process of systematizing
and canonizing existentialism as a movement of thought. As such, it recon-
structs a shared dialogue about the human condition in the form of a series
of reception histories. But it does so in a somewhat disjointed set of frames,
for the process of establishing existentialism as a distinctive brand of theoriz-
ing about the human predicament in modernity was welded together only in
hindsight.
One might assume that an overview of the history of existentialism would
offer a definition of its subject at the outset. But existentialism, in principle,
rejects a neat dictionary definition or formulation. It is not a consistent or
systematic philosophy or approach to thought.1 If anything, existentialism
defined itself against systems: systems of thought like Georg Wilhelm Fried-
rich Hegel’s or “scientific” schemas like racism or positivism; systems of be-
havior like those of the mob mentality of the masses as in nationalism or