Search

Filozofia absurdu jest zagadkowym obszarem myśli, który, z racji wymykania się sztywnym kategoryzacjom, porzuciła zarówno filozofia, jak i literatura. Mimo zmian w sposobach uprawiania humanistyki w ostatnich latach – dążeniu do interdyscyplinarności, która w tym przypadku jest bezdyskusyjna (to pogranicze filozofii i literatury, ale postawy bohaterów absurdalnych można analizować też na polach socjologii, psychologii, kognitywistyki, teologii, by wymienić te najbardziej oczywiste), zainteresowanie filozofią absurdu nie wzrosło, a wręcz zmalało. Dość nadmienić, iż mimo posługiwania się terminem filozofia absurdu przynajmniej od czasu publikacji Camusowskiego Mitu Syzyfa, w żadnym leksykonie nie istnieje takie hasło encyklopedyczne. Próżno szukać też monografii zestawiającej absurdystów w jednym opracowaniu. Z tych powodów wyznaczenie ram interesującego mnie obszaru, przedstawienie jego postulatów i dookreślenie samego absurdu jako kategorii filozoficznej stanowiły wyzwanie badawcze. To obszar zagadkowy, bo niedopowiedziany, w którym obok poczynionych ustaleń, pozostaną przestrzenie niewypełnialne, bo należące do sfery indywidualnej wrażliwości i przeżyć. Kolejny problem stanowiły specyfikacja filozofii absurdu i kwestia zasadności metodologicznego jej wyodrębnienia. Sytuującej się na styku filozofii i literatury filozofii absurdu towarzyszą specyficzna terminologia ukuta zarówno przez absurdystów, jak i badaczy ich myśli (jej systematyzacji dokonuję na końcu pracy) oraz postawa światopoglądowa, której daleko jednak do zamkniętej struktury. Camus odmawiał filozofii absurdu miana systemu filozoficznego, rozumianego jako poszukiwanie, dla uprzednio wyróżnionych problemów, rozwiązania i uzasadnienia w oparciu o spójną siatkę przekonań, które później systematyzowane są pod postacią wybranych dyscyplin. Filozofia absurdu – w przeciwieństwie do egzystencjalizmu – przedstawia problem, ale nie pretenduje do jego (niemożliwego) rozwiązania. Podobnie Unamuno zwracał uwagę na proces filozofowania, aktywną postawę, nie zestaw zamkniętych przekonań. Chcąc zatem określić charakter tego pojęciowo-światopoglądowego tworu, związanego z nihilizmem i egzystencjalizmem, można, jak sądzę, mówić o nurcie (alternatywnie: prądzie) filozoficznym, a konkretniej filozoficzno-literackim, a więc o konglomeracie pokrewnych idei skupiających się wobec danego zagadnienia (w tym przypadku absurdu ludzkiej egzystencji)

In this thesis, I argue that there is a metaphysical shift in Albert Camus’s philosophy which allows him to build an ethics of revolt in his later work out of his earlier, individual-focused account of absurdism. Against Herbert Hochberg and other scholars who argue that Camus’s later work is inconsistent with his earlier work, this thesis tracks the progression of Camus’s thought in order to demonstrate that his ethics does not constitute a rupture with his past work but a consistent evolution of it. First dealing with the problem of suicide covered in the Sisyphean cycle, the thesis goes on to examine the ethics of rebellion in the Promethean cycle and concludes with a speculative consideration of the third, incomplete cycle on love. Taken together, these chapters show that the consistent evolution of Camus’s absurdism argues the reaction to the absurd that one ought to have is that of agape: the recognition of humanity’s innate power to create value as a transcendental structure of consciousness.

Even though parallels between the philosophy of Albert Camus and The Big Lebowski have been drawn repeatedly, a sustained enquiry into several possible dimensions of the matter is yet to have been conducted.This dissertation makes an attempt to conduct the aforementioned enquiry in some detail. In doing this, the study will try to analytically compare Camusian philosophy and Dudeism and bring out the similarities between them. This does not imply that there are no differences between the two; but the focus of this study is the similarities and not the differences. Dudeism, for the purpose of this study, will not be restricted to The Dude and the literature written on The Dude and Dudeism. It will also be expanded to accommodate certain other parts of the larger discourse of Ethan and Joel Coen’s filmography as well as a few other parts of The Big Lebowski itself. It is crucial, however, to “draw a line in the sand” (Walter, The Big Lebowski) at the very outset. In embarking on a comparative analysis between Camusian philosophy and Dudeism, this study does not intend to propose that one of them is influenced by the other and “what-have-you” ("The Editorial Preface" 12). Instead, it simply attempts to point out some of the discursive elements that they share with each other as well as with several of the sub-discourses they comprise of. The analysis in the dissertation that follows is split into three major chapters: 1. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what I’m blathering about’: An analytical frame of reference. 2. ‘You can’t be worried about that shit, life goes on, man’: Life, Death and Absurdity in Camus and Dudeism. 3. ‘Somebody this square community won’t give a shit about’: Camus’ Absurd Man and Dudeism The first chapter, “‘Well, I’ll tell you what I’m blathering about’: An analytical frame of reference”, provides an analytical framework for the discussions that follow in the rest of the dissertation. It is further divided into three sections. The first section lays out a basic understanding of a few fundamental ideas of Dudeism for the readers. The second section discusses a few important aspects of the philosophy of Albert Camus. The third section briefly establishes the connections between Dudeism and the philosophy of Camus which are examined in greater detail later in the study. The second chapter, “‘You can’t be worried about that shit, life goes on, man’: Life, Death and Absurdity in Camus and Dudeism” looks at Camus’ takes on Life, Death and Absurdity while also pointing out the parallels they seem to strike with Dudeism. The chapter is further divided into four sections. The first section examines strands of Camusian thought, especially the Absurd in the other films of Ethan and Joel Coen before establishing a connection to The Big Lebowski. The second section explores the attitudes towards Death in Camusian philosophy and Dudeism. The third section compares the ideologies of Life in the works of Camus and Dudeism. The fourth and final section explores parallels between Camus’ novel The Stranger and The Stranger: the cowboy narrator of The Big Lebowski. The third chapter picks up on the Camusian trope of the Absurd Man and its relation to Happiness in both: the works of Camus as well as the discourses of Dudeism. It comprises of three sections. The first section explores the notion of Alienation in Camusian philosophy and Dudeism and looks at how it eventually leads to the trope of the Absurd Man in Camus. The second section explores Camus’ creation of the Absurd Man through the Cycle of the Absurd and looks at how it fits into Dudeism. The third and final section delves into a comparison of the Absurd Man’s quest for Happiness in Camus and Dudeism.

This thesis is a collection of four stories and a critical introduction titled "Ferris Wheels in Winter." The introduction explicates the common theme uniting the various stories, that of the author's attempt to confront despair by writing about characters who struggle with belief, disillusionment, and disjunction between self and place.This thesis includes the following titles: "The Reality of the Provinces," "The Tourists," "Low-hanging Fruit," and "A Pilgrim's Notes."

My dissertation Re-Humanizing the Alien: Estranged Masculinities in Cuban Existentialist Fiction examines the role of alienation in the construction of compensatory masculine subjectivities during the social, cultural and industrial modernization of Cuba, dating from the mid-19th century until the initial stages of the Cuban Revolution, in the 1960s. In this project I analyze, primarily from the perspective of gender studies, transcontinental philosophy (European and Latin American) and the history of ideas in the Hispanic-American world, the shifts in masculine identity formation among Cuban intellectuals and writers whose work deals with the relation between angst and freedom in the context of crisis tendencies in the developing colonial/postcolonial state. For this purpose, I will analyze the works of the following Cuban authors: José Antonio Saco (1797-1879), Juan Francisco Manzano (1797-1854), Enrique Labrador Ruiz (1902-1991), Virgilio Piñera (1912-1979), Edmundo Desnoes (1930-) and Calvert Casey (1924-1969). Studying these writers and their literary production, I will be able to contribute to current debates on existentialism with regard to the role of masculinities in generating forms of resistance against patriarchal and colonial oppression. Moreover, I demonstrate how these gender constructs interrogate traditional notions of Cuban and Spanish Caribbean modernity by deploying existential narratives in the service of fashioning a literary-grounded decolonial ethics. Consequently, I provide a critical reading of the topic of existentialism which demonstrates the validity of the notion of gender as a useful category of analysis for understanding the role of affect in destabilizing cultural gender norms. This project ultimately aims to analyze alternative ways of expressing masculinity which have emerged from within literary negotiations of identity, thus allowing for a more inclusive and comprehensive evaluation of Cuban male subjectivities, and a deeper understanding of the historical development of social and economic relations in the nation-state, as well as its engagement with ideology, race, national character and politics.

I locate my dissertation at the critical intersection of philosophy, medical discourse and literature, and anchor it around five intertwining concepts: modernity, subjectivity, masculinity, immunity and Frenchness. I contend that immunity, as a concept at which life and law converge, offers an alternative and largely overlooked episteme shaping contemporary French literary consciousness as a primary regulator/negotiator between health and sickness, belonging and not belonging, volition and involition, and, finally, self and other. I treat immunity metaphorically and scientifically, and then trace the episteme through the works of three French authors—Émile Zola, Albert Camus and Hervé Guibert—all of whom adopt the medical novel as a way of addressing the relationship of the individual to society and to the self. Anne-Marie Moulin frames the immunological revolution as an ever-evolving "semantic event." In this vein, I devote my first chapter to examining how immunity instituted itself as a common trope of "becoming" embraced—and left naturalized—by post-structural thinkers grappling with their corporal limits. This rhetorical turn culminates in Jean-Luc Nancy's characterization of the immune system as the body’s “physiological signature," inhibiting the potential of man to transcend his biology. In my second chapter, I move from the metaphor of immunity to a brief exposition of the history of the science, ending my survey with Elie Metchnikoff (and his legacy), the "father" of cellular immunology who envisioned the internal body as a dynamic, every-changing structure. I focus the next three chapters of my study on literary examples where the male protagonist’s immunity has been compromised. For my first two examples—Le Docteur Pascal by Emile Zola and La Peste by Albert Camus—I analyze the portrait of the supposedly immune doctor, considering what the “costs and benefits" of this immunity are and how this "exceptional status" is destabilized. Then, in my last chapter, I switch perspectives from the doctors to the patient, examining the texts of Hervé Guibert who, I argue, models his writing strategy on the retrovirus’s tactics, challenging literary conventions so as better to exteriorize his experience and “contaminate” (in the etymological sense as "touch together") his readers.

This paper revisits one of the more frequented stops at the crossroads of politics and morality in contemporary ethical theory, Michael Walzer’s essay “Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands.” The aim is to provide a fresh assessment of Walzer’s project, and to evaluate the tenability of its core notion of “dirty hands.” In pursuit of this aim, the effort is made to reopen the paths which take Walzer to his celebrated impasse, from two directions. The first of these resituates Walzer’s analysis in the context of the debate within Anglo-American ethical theory in which it is originally expounded. The second route seeks to recapture the trail of thinkers who guide Walzer to his conclusions from more remote locations in intellectual history, in order to determine the reliability of his intriguing constellation of Machiavelli, Weber and Camus as lodestars. Writing thirty years later, one of Walzer’s friendliest interpreters, Jean Elshtain, in the midst of her enthusiasm for ‘dirty hands,’ renews doubts about his recommendation of “casuistry.” Hints from throughout Walzer’s essay, incompletely elaborated there, are parceled together into closing suggestions as to an alternative approach to so-called ‘dirty hands’ situations.

This thesis examines the spiritual dimensions of Albert Camus's "cycle of the absurd"--The Myth of Sisyphus, The Stranger, and Caligula--by paralleling Camus's absurd vision of life to the various themes of the ancient text of Hebrew-wisdom literature, Ecclesiastes. Both Camus and Qohelet (the main speaker of Ecclesiastes) describe the absurdity of human existence that arises from the limitations of human reason, the futility of human action, and the certainty of death. Although Camus (an atheist) and Qohelet (a theist) begin with different assumptions regarding the existence of God--the very Being who potentially gives meaning and clarity to his creation--their similar discoveries and conclusions reveal an unlikely compatibility between theistic and atheistic attitudes towards the human situation. While Camus and Qohelet recognize that the world disappoints and cannot be explained by human reasoning, and is therefore absurd, they each conclude that uncertainty, mortality, and human limitations may prompt a certain liberation and solace that allow them to move beyond the absurd and affirm their existence. This curious parallel between the ancient Hebraic wisdom of Ecclesiastes and Camus's modern existential attitudes in the "cycle of the absurd" show that a profound awareness of the absurd may compel the individual to live authentically and passionately despite the seeming unreasonableness of his or her life.

In recent cinematic history, films have often expressed through the experiences of characters an 'existential moment' in which fundamental assumptions about life are questioned and potentially rendered meaningless. The purpose of this project is to follow two accounts of this expressed moment in the 1999 films American Beauty and Fight Club, understanding them as such through particular readings of the philosophical articulations of Albert Camus. I analyze the social climates of liberalism and consumerism that might account for these expressions of discontent and anxiety at the same time I evaluate the validity of existential thought in the contemporary social world. Ultimately, I question what kinds of political qualms absurdity might render, using film experience as a venue to understand and evaluate these questions.

As an advanced society of industrialized capitalism has an ever-tighter grip on our everyday lives, I ask if rebellion is possible in the current context. To this end, I formulate a model of rebellion based on my readings of Marcuse and Camus; from Marcuse, the idea that a person can formulate a rebellious subjectivity through the consumption of art in the creation of the aesthetic dimension, and from Camus, an individual placing limits on what oppression he will take from an existing order and at what point she will say "no" to that order and giving a concurrent "yes" by acting in such a way that fosters Camus' human community. I argue after the Cold War especially, the bureaucratic society of controlled consumption closes down spaces for meaningful rebellion. As we have moved from hip consumerism to market populism, the goal of the existing order is for the citizens thereof to legitimate the order. I analyze various groups to see if they are engaging in rebellion, such as Al Qaeda, Hamas, the Earth and Animal Liberation Fronts, and analyze their methods. I find that instead of labeling as terrorist or rebel, we should let the rebellious subjectivity guide our judgment of their actions. Ultimately, I conclude that rebellion is still a possibility even in the encroaching totality of the bureaucratic society of controlled consumption, and that a preservation of the rebellious subjectivity can provide a basis for formulating a rebellious praxis not yet called into being.

Reading Don DeLillo and Dave Eggers one feels the strong impression that nothing matters. Using White Noise and You Shall Know Our Velocity as starting points I examine where this impression comes from and what it implies. Next I explore the question of whether life could be worth living in such a situation and what a worthwhile life would look like using Camus' works The Myth of Sisyphus and The Stranger. Finally I examine The Rebel and The Plague to determine whether humanism is still possible given the picture painted in the above works. Ultimately I conclude that it is still possible to care about the suffering of others.

Presenting and applying an ideal developmental model for the classical existential hero, or main character, provides a functional paradigm for discrimination between essentialist and existential texts. In particular it allows for degrees of fine existential differentiation amongst the hero's acts of any literary work. The paradigm does so by making it possible clearly to discern and describe the "recuperation" that a reader must do to render an "impaired" text intelligible. The paradigm covers four phases of transformational activity by the hero, more or less successfully negotiated, depending on the given work under analysis; vacillation/bad faith; crisis/arrest; abrogation/nothingness; and nihilation/project choice. Only one of the three novels so analyzed, Camus' The Stranger, contains a hero, Meursault, who is able to engage this paradigm successfully. The other two novels, not generally associated with existentialism, Heller's Something Happened and Chopin's The Awakening, reveal important and explicable variations of the model, but neither finally gives an exemplary authentic hero. The value of this paradigm is the way it functions as a dynamic heuristics, as a template, to isolate and render meaningful the dimensions of the career of each main character of these works as an "existential murderer." After an introduction of the paradigm, the thesis analyzes the tragic suicide of Mrs. Edna Pontellier, the comic infanticide of Bob Slocum, and the tragicomic homicide of Meursault.