In the modern age, religions, moral codes, and cultural systems come into question. The individual human being finds itself alone and uncertain, in search of value and meaning. Anxiety first becomes an important theme in this period. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this situation gives rise—especially after World War II–to existentialism, a movement in thought that turns around the felt need and desire to discover new ways of orienting oneself ethically and aesthetically in the world. We read and discuss novels, short stories, and philosophical essays that explore the dissolution of old values, and the possibilities for the creation of new ones. All of these texts focus on radical freedom and radical self-responsibility. We examine central works by German, French and Antillais authors from the late 1800s and the 1900s, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Franz Kafka, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Franz Fanon.
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