1. An Overview of the International Reception of Existentialism: The Existentialist Tsunami; Alfred Betschart.- Part I: North America.- 2. Sartre and the American New Left; Ronald Aronson.- 3. The Absurd: Postwar Reception and Wartime Echoes at Yale French Studies; Julia Elsky.- 4. Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, a Signpost for Existentialism’s Reception in the American South; Damon Boria.- 5. The Reception of Sartre’s Plays: The Respectful Prostitute and Dirty Hands during the Cold War Period; Adrian van den Hoven.- Part II: Europe Outside France.- 6. Guéhenno in Gehenna. The English and German Translations of La nausée; Norbert Bachleitner.- 7. “Existentialist Hu-ha”?: Censoring the Existentialists in the British Theatre; Jamie Andrews.- 8. The Impact in Italy of Sartre and his Thinking; Francesco Caddeo.- 9. Toward an Ethics of Singularity: Temporality, Irreversibility, and Need in the Dialogue between Jean-Paul-Sartre and Enzo Paci; Raoul Kirchmayr.- 10. Sartre in Germany- Even in the East; Vincent von Wroblewsky.- 11. French Cultural Policy and the Transfer of Existentialism in Allied-Occupied Austria; Juliane Werner.- Part III: Asia, Latin America, and Africa.- 12. The Journey of Sartrean Existentialism into Turkey; Ayşenaz Cengiz.- 13. Middle Eastern Existentialism; Hamid Andishan.- 14. Arab Existentialism: What was it?; Yoav Di-Capua.- 15. Sartre’s Presence in Israeli Literature: The Case of Hanoch Levin; Rony Klein.- 16. The Discovery of the Other in Post-War Japan: Two Sartreans on Kyoto School and Zainichi Koreans; Nariaki Kobayashi and Hiroaki Seki.- 17. A Brief History of the Reception of Sartre in Argentina; Alan Patricio Savignano.- 18. Existentialism Against Colonialism: Sartre, Fanon, and the Place of Lived Experience; Robert Bernasconi.- Part IV: Science and Arts.- 19. Existential Psychoanalysis in America; Cameron Bassiri and Matthew Senie.- 20. Existentialism and Cinema: The Dialectic of Bad Faith and Authenticity in Federico Fellini’s 8½; Maria Russo.
Alfred Betschart is a Swiss Sartre scholar with particular interests in the history of existentialism, existentialist ethics, and existentialism and politics.
Juliane Werner is a research fellow and lecturer in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Vienna, Austria. She has recently worked and published on the cultural transfer of existentialism and on various aspects of philosophical fiction.
This edited collection re-examines the global impact of Sartre’s philosophy from 1944-68. From his emergence as an eminent philosopher, dramatist, and novelist, to becoming the ‘world’s conscience’ through his political commitment, Jean-Paul Sartre shaped the mind-set of a generation, influencing writers and thinkers both in France and far beyond.
Exploring the presence of existentialism in literature, theatre, philosophy, politics, psychology and film, the contributors seek to discover what made Sartre’s philosophy so successful outside of France. With twenty diverse chapters encompassing the US, Europe, the Middle East, East Asia and Latin America, the volume analyses the dissemination of existentialism through literary periodicals, plays, universities and libraries around the world, as well as the substantial challenges it faced.
The global post-war surge of existentialism left permanent traces in history, exerting considerable influence on our way of life in its quest for authenticity and freedom. This timely and compelling volume revives the path taken by a philosophical movement that continues to contribute to the anti-discrimination politics of today.