.jpg)
As first-years grapple with the transition into college, one of the most difficult challenges facing our young Jumbos is the search for individual purpose in a disorientingly new environment. For Reed Cohen and Andre Maman (both Class of 2019), the answers to such challenges lie within the interpretation of the Existentialists, who believe in constructing individual meaning through personal choice and experience rather than through any objective societal “truth.”
In their Explorations course, Existential Literature: Finding Meaning in the Human Condition, Cohen and Maman provide newly arrived students with a framework to “help navigate the adulthood, freedom, and choice that [first-years] have just been thrown into.” Their course focuses on discovering the root of human understanding and various methods towards “living authentically,” as expounded by the course’s three core authors: Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Hermann Hesse.
In their latest class, students read Sartre’s 1946 essay, “Existentialism is a Humanism,” as a precursor to his acclaimed novel, Nausea. Like most existentialist works, Sartre’s essay is both “incredibly dense” and “incredibly rewarding.” Despite the students’ strong critical reading abilities, these texts are taxing even to the most accomplished of readers. Students often get bogged down in the text itself without grasping the overall meaning, and many enter class puzzled over their latest assignment.
Cohen explained how he and Maman address these common difficulties: “we certainly allow in the middle period of the class for that spiraling to happen, but we’re always trying to put these ideas in relation to what they mean for them [the students], in terms of how to be constructive...how do we turn that nihilism optimistic? And that’s basically the point of existentialism.” Cohen and Maman seek for students to reach personal understanding through group discussion, context, and academic leadership. But that journey to clarity is precisely what Cohen looks forward to as a teacher, when many of the students’ eyes “light up” in comprehension and they finally understand the Existentialist intention “to use it [Existentialist philosophy] to better your life and better enjoy what you have in front of you.”
The two seniors hope that students find this course equally rewarding. “My hope isn’t that they come out of this existentialists,” Cohen pointed out after his latest class. “I think Andre would agree with me that our objective is for students to come out with a broadened mind. It’s all about challenging preconceived notions and starting a journey towards a deeper truth that’s applicable to each of them.”
About the Author
Emma Hodgdon is a senior studying English literature. Apart from reading Gothic fiction, she can be found practicing cello for the Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, or dancing with the university’s ballroom dance team. She spends her free time experimenting with calligraphy, learning to speak Chinese, and caring for her succulents, Verotchka and Geraldine.
Works Cited:
Crowell, Steven. “Existentialism.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Retreived at <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/existentialism/>.
Comentários