Course Overview - Existentialism in Literature/Film
The course explores the 20th century philosophy of existentialism through many lenses—books, movies, plays, and music. We’ll read, watch, and perform Hamlet and several parodies of the play, including Tom Stoppard’s clever and provocative Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and we’ll compose our own film adaptation proposals. Twice a month, we’ll have a coffeehouse discussion to relate the philosophy’s “big questions” to our own lives. We’ll read novels, short stories, poetry, and prose excerpts from around the world to see how different writers address the same question: What does it mean to be a human being?
spring 2007
Feed (M.T. Anderson)
Hamlet (Dover Thrift Edition)
Nine Stories (J.D. Salinger)
Gertrude and Claudius (John Updike)
Unit One - Life in the 21st Century
Feed
Blade Runner
Koyaanisqatsi
Etexts: from Postmodernism, from Generation X, from Martin Dressler, "A Way out of Wonderland," "pity this busy monster manunkind"
Unit Two - Existential Crisis and Philosophy
Cool Hand Luke
Nine Stories
Munich, A Room with a View, Thelma and Louise, The Big Chill, Four Days in September, Garden State, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Etexts: "The Wall," "The Myth of Sisyphus," "The Deer at Providencia," "Howl"
A-words: Absurd, Alienation, Aware, Authentic, All, Act
Unit Three - Hamlet (and friends and family)
Hamlet (Dover Thrift Edition)
Gertrude and Claudius (John Updike)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Tom Stoppard)
Units Four and Five - Personal Code and Personal Identity
excerpts from Persepolis
Hoop Dreams
Kramer vs. Kramer
Norma Rae
Etexts: from Separate Checks, "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber," "Barbie Doll," "The Story of an Hour," "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," "Living Like Weasels," "Song of Myself," "Wild Geese"