An Invitation To The Class!
About The Course
This is a 16-week online course, focused on selected philosophy and literature from key authors in the Existentialist movement. Existentialism encompasses a broad and diverse set of thinkers in the 19th and 20th century, who are often in productive disagreement with each other, but who grapple with central and common questions of human existence.
We will be studying and discussing key themes, images, arguments, distinctions, insights, and characters found in representative works by Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Shestov, Rilke, Unamuno, Kafka, Heidegger, Marcel, Sartre, De Beauvoir, Camus, Fanon, and Nishitani
The class will meet online for weekly 90-minute class sessions using Zoom, on Thursdays at 9 AM Central Time. All class sessions will be recorded and students can watch them at their leisure as often as they like. Students will also be provided with handouts developed by the instructor, some of which will be brand new for this course!
This is an open-access version of a class Dr. Sadler developed and taught in academic institutions numerous times over the last two decades.
Example Curriculum
- Overview Of Week 2: What We Will Be Reading, Discussing, and Learning
- Link For Week 2 Online (Zoom) Session - 9:00 AM Central Time
- Handout - Kierkegaards Works and Pseudonyms
- Handout - Kierkegaard On Knights In Fear and Trembling
- Handout - Kierkegaard On The Three Stages
- Handout - Kierkegaard On The Present Age and Contradictions
- Overview Of Week 3: What We Will Be Reading, Discussing, and Learning
- Link For Week 3 Online (Zoom) Session - 9:00 AM Central Time
- Handout - Anger And The Underground Man
- Handout - The Underground Man And Anti-Enlightenment
- Handout - Characters and Ideologies In The Demons/The Possessed
- Handout - The Temptations Of The Grand Inquisitor (coming soon)
- Soren Kierkegaard - The Crowd Is Untruth
- Soren Kierkegaard - The Present Age
- Soren Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling (selections)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky - Notes from the Underground part 1
- Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov (selections)
- Friedrich Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra prologue and part 1
- Friedrich Nietzsche - The Genealogy of Morals (selections)
- Lev Shestov - All Things Are Possible
- Rainer Maria Rilke - Letters to a Young Poet
- Rainer Maria Rilke -The Notebooks Of Malte Laurids Brigge (supplemental)
- Miguel de Unamuno - Tragic Sense of Life
- Franz Kafka - The Metamorphosis
- Franz Kafka, In The Penal Colony
- Martin Heidegger - What Is Metaphysics?
- Martin Heidegger - Being and Time (selections, supplemental)
- Gabriel Marcel - Concrete Approaches To The Ontological Mystery
- Jean-Paul Sartre - Existentialism is a Humanism
- Jean-Paul Sartre - No Exit
- Simone de Beauvoir - The Ethics Of Ambiguity
- Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex (selections)
- Frantz Fanon - Black Skin White Masks
- Albert Camus - The Myth of Sisyphus
- Keiji Nishitani - The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism (selections)
- Alasdair MacIntyre - Existentialism encyclopedia entry
- Mikel Dufrenne - Existentialism and Existentialisms
- Paul Tillich - The Nature and the Significance of Existentialist Thought
- Robert C. Solomon - Existentialism, Emotions, and the Cultural Limits of Rationality
- John Wild - Existentialism as a Philosophy
About The Instructor
After a successful career as a college professor, researcher, and administrator, I started our company, ReasonIO to help people study and apply philosophy in public, practical, and professional contexts. I continue teaching philosophy, literature, religious studies, and humanities courses at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.
I take difficult philosophical texts, thinkers, and topics, and make them accessible for everyday people. That's how philosophy gets traction and remains closely connected with real life!
From 2016 to 2022, I served as the Editor of Stoicism Today. I remain a member of the Modern Stoicism, ltd. team. I am also the producer of the Half Hour Hegel series. I have authored one book (Reason Fulfilled By Revelation), edited two volumes (Stoicism Today Selected Essays, volume 3 and volume 4), and published dozens of articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries. Although I work in significant part outside of the academy, I remain actively engaged in research and scholarship.
I have held a Research Residency at the Institute for Saint Anselm Studies, been a Visiting Scholar position at European Graduate School, and was a Charles Chesnutt Library Fellow. I am also an APPA-certified Philosophical Counselor.
Example Featured Products
Showcase other available courses, bundles, and coaching products you’re selling with the Featured Products block to provide alternatives to visitors who may not be interested in this specific product.
