The Project

Simone de Beauvoir accepted your Facebook friend request

Rethinking Existentialism was published by Oxford University Press in 2018 in hardback, 2020 in paperback. It is available from all good booksellers (and a bad one).

It presents an original interpretation of existentialism as the ethical theory that human freedom is the foundation of all other values.

The book argues this through detailed analysis of classic literary and philosophical works published by Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Frantz Fanon in critical contrast with central works by Albert Camus, Sigmund Freud, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It concludes by sketching some implications of existentialism for current philosophy, psychology, and psychotherapy.

Image of Jonathan Webber at UK Sartre Society 2013

For news of events, essays, and papers developing the book’s themes, sign up for occasional emails, like the Facebook page, follow the Twitter feed, or subscribe to this site’s Atom feed ::

link to Atom feed of project news blog link to form for subscribing to project email announcement list link to project Facebook pagelink to project Twitter feed

 

 

The book was written during a period of research leave funded by Cardiff University and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

The project included workshops, conferences, and a series of YouTube talks on each of the book’s chapters. More information about these can be found on this website.

 

Logo of Arts and Humanities Research Council and link to their website