This course aims at examining the philosophical movement of existentialism in its relation to the arts. In particular, it seeks to trace the manifold interrelations between existentialist theory and artistic practice, i.e. the ways in which both fields have reacted to shared (late) modern concerns and in which they have mutually affected and fruitfully influenced each other since the middle of the 20th century.Giving a survey of central positions in the tradition—from its origins in Pascal, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, to its peak in the works of Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Camus and its idiosyncratic reception by Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, and Dreyfus—the course focuses on three  dimensions of existentialist thought: Firstly, the dimension of lived individual existence as it is discussed in relation to questions such as 'How can I live my life freely, authentically, and meaningfully?'; secondly, the dimension of politics and ethics as it is discussed based on questions such as 'How can I live my life in an engaged, committed, and responsible way, both as an individual and as a member of a community?'; and, thirdly and most importantly, the aesthetic dimension. With regard to this third dimension, we will try to understand why existentialist thinkers attribute outmost significance to art, claiming that artistic practices and works of art are unique in their capacities to express freedom and authenticity, to open up meaning, and to embody commitment and responsibility.Our attempt to disentangle the network of philosophical-artistic existentialist exchanges will center around a number of guiding questions: What impulses from the field of art (e.g., from the works of Dostoevsky, Woolf, Kafka, Klee, or Chillida) helped shape philosophical existentialism? What impulses of existentialist thinking were taken up by art movements (e.g., Art Brut and Abstract Expressionism) and individual artists (e.g., Giacometti and Bacon)? And what impulse led existentialist authors like Sartre and Camus to reject any categorization that rigidly distinguishes between art and philosophy—and to write texts in which both inseparably coincide? While we will include selected literary works that draw inspiration from the existentialist approach in our discussions (e.g., Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Kerouac's On the Road, Salih's Season of Migration to the North, and Daoud's The Mersault Investigation), particular attention will be paid to the ways in which existentialist ideas have been received, appropriated, and transformed in the visual arts: Besides painting and sculpture, films by directors such as Kurosawa, Resnais, and Bergman, Coppola and Malick, or, more recently, Jarmusch,  Fincher, and Hansen-Løve will provide rich material for analysis.

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