It is perhaps one of the most famous couples in history: Sartre and De Beauvoir. As founding fathers of existentialism and the new feminism, they protested in the streets to demand change and addressed individual responsibility and radical human freedom. What can we learn from them in our current times full of uncertainties, wars, climate change, and other problems? It is time for an introduction to France's most illustrious thinkers!
Simone de Beauvoir is one of the founders of existentialism and is known for Le Deuxième Sexe (1949), in which she wrote that men and women are born equal. Do we impose different roles on each other in society? Jean-Paul Sartre wrote L'existentialisme est un Humanisme (1945) but in addition to his philosophical works, he is also acclaimed for his playwright, such as Huis Clos with its famous statement “Hell, that's the others” and novels such as Le Mur.
Prof. Dr. Ruud Welten is a professor of contemporary approaches to human subjectivity at the Erasmus School of Philosophy (ESPhil). He is an expert on modern French philosophers and wrote, among other works, Who's Afraid of Simone de Beauvoir? On feminism, existentialism, God, love and sex and a small biography (Elementaire Deeltjes) on Sartre.
This event is organized by Studium Generale
