Webber, Jonathan. Review of Joseph S. Catalano, READING SARTRE. NDPR (February 2011).

Catalano, Joseph S.  Reading Sartre.  Cambridge: CUP, 2010.

Anglophone readers of Jean-Paul Sartre's major philosophical treatises have long been indebted to the work of Joseph Catalano. His commentaries on Being and Nothingness and Critique of Dialectical Reason together provide a detailed map of the complicated terrain of Sartre's thought and have proved indispensable to students and academics alike since their first publication in 1974 and 1986 respectively. This cartographic exegesis has grounded his own careful contributions to debates in the philosophy of mind and action, well represented by his collection Good Faith and Other Essays and his monograph Thinking Matter.

His latest book, Reading Sartre, is arguably his most ambitious, drawing together into a single narrative arc not only the two major theoretical treatises on which he has published commentaries, but also the largest two of Sartre's biographical works, the hefty Saint Genet: Actor and Martyr and the gargantuan yet unfinished The Family Idiot: Gustave Flaubert 1821-1857. Although he has brought these works together before, in the final chapter of Good Faith and Other Essays, his aim here is much broader in scope and deeper in detail. The goal of this thorough study, he tells us, is to 'rethink Sartre': although he is trying to clarify the basic structures of Sartre's theory of the place of the individual in the social and material world, he admits that he will inevitably develop only a particular perspective on that theory (p. x). His tone is thus frequently tentative and exploratory and he regularly reminds his readers to take his work as an invitation to 'read more deeply' and allow Sartre's thought to help them, as it has helped him, 'to think more clearly and more honestly' (pp. ix, xii).

Catalano illustrates Sartre's thought with aspects of our social and political life, such as the state of heightened security in which the western world has been operating for the past decade, as well as more personal dimensions of our lives, such as our childhoods and relations with our own children. He may well be right that our lives can be enriched by the ability to see it in Sartrean perspective and is certainly right to imply that we ought to be more philosophical about our quotidian concerns than is usually the case. But in emphasising this import of his book, Catalano downplays the major contribution the book is set to make to academic discussions about or informed by Sartre's existentialism.

In drawing together Sartre's four largest publications, written about a decade apart and together spanning almost his entire career, and in viewing Sartre's major biographical writings as works that develop as well as apply his philosophy, Reading Sartre sets a fresh agenda for the scholarly study of Sartre's writings and for the use of his thought to inform ongoing philosophical, psychological, and political debates. Through careful analysis of the structure and central claims of Sartre's four most substantial works, two of which have so far received scant philosophical attention, and by laying bare the theoretical relations between these works, Catalano facilitates the pursuit of this new agenda just as his earlier commentaries have facilitated discussion of Sartre for nearly four decades. . . .

Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=22649.

Cfp: 18th Biennial Conference, North American Sartre Society, TÉLUQ, Montréal, April 27-29, 2011.

Papers in any area of Sartrean scholarship are welcome (philosophy, literature, psychology, politics, intellectual history). Reading time for a paper should be 25-30 minutes (to be followed by the respondent’s commentary (optional) and 10 minutes of discussion). In addition to individual papers, we would be most interested in receiving suggestions for panel topics. Panel topics that deal with any aspect of Sartre’s work; its relationship to other authors as well as those that deal with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir will be seriously considered. Graduate students are encouraged to submit papers. A limited number of stipends will be available to help defray the cost of travel and lodging. Graduate students whose paper has been accepted must apply for these stipends.

This year’s keynote speaker will be Régine Robin. Robin is Professor Emerita in the Department of Sociology of Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM). She is an historian and sociologist who also writes novels and essays. In her work, she explores questions related to collective and individual memory, Jewishness, city dwelling, as well as relations between literature, culture and society. In 1987, she was awarded the prestigious Governor General of Canada’s prize for her book Le Réalisme socialiste: une esthétique impossible. In 2001, she was awarded the City of Montreal’s Grand Prix du livre for Berlin chantiers. She has published more than twenty theoretical and critical essays including Le roman mémoriel: de l’histoire à l’écriture du hors-lieu (1989), Le Golem de l’écriture: de l’autofiction au cybersoi (1997), La mémoire saturée (2003), Mégapolis: les derniers pas du flâneur (2009), as well as La Québécoite (1983), considered to be one of the representative novels of what has been coined the migrant literature of Quebec.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS: DECEMBER 20, 2010.

Please E-MAIL a 2 page abstract of your paper as an attachment to cdaigle@brocku.ca. For panel submissions, please submit an abstract for the whole panel as well as abstracts for each individual paper. These will be forwarded to the Program Committee for blind refereeing.

Eshleman, Matthew. Review of Jennifer Ang Mei Sze, SARTRE AND THE MORAL LIMITS OF WAR AND TERRORISM. NDPR (June 2010).

Sze, Jennifer Ang Mei. Sartre and the Moral Limits of War and Terrorism. London: Routledge, 2010.

Jennifer Ang Mei Sze's Sartre and the Moral Limits of War and Terrorism provides an ambitious study of Jean-Paul Sartre's widely varying analyses of violence. Traversing his massive corpus, Sze both "reconstructs" (2, 3, 4, 7, 132) and "reinterprets" (4, 7, 27, 107) her way to what she labels 'the violent Sartre.' This is a self-consciously ironic label, since the "reconstructed 'violent Sartre'" takes an "absolutist" position that prohibits certain kinds of violence, "especially when terrorist tactics are involved" (2, 89, see also 132). Undoubtedly this book will stir controversy, especially given Sartre's many incendiary remarks about violence, which do not appear (at all) to caution against terrorist tactics and/or the killing of civilians, at least not at first glance; e.g., those from his preface to Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth [1961] and later from essays in the Maoist revolutionary newspaper La Cause du peuple [early 1970's]. While Sze offers reasonable interpretations of these polemical essays, which render them consistent with her reconstructed view, her relative strengths and least controversial analyses occur when she focuses on Sartre's theoretical works, which provide this book's central focus.

Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=20208.

"Reading Sartre: on Phenomenology and Existentialism," École Normale Supérieure, September 20-21, 2010.

A two-day conference on Sartre's philosophy of the 1930s and 1940s. Conference will launch the book Jonathan Webber, ed. Reading Sartre: On Phenomenology and Existentialism. London: Routledge, 2010. Papers include: The Ethics of Authenticity – Christine Daigle (Brock) Imagination in Non-Representational Painting – Andreas Elpidorou (Boston) What Is It Like To Be Free? – Matthew C. Eshleman (North Carolina Wilmington) The Transcendental Dimension of Sartre’s Philosophy – Sebastian Gardner (UCL) Being Colonized – Azzedine Haddour (UCL) A Sartrean Critique of Introspection – Anthony Hatzimoysis (Athens) Imagination and Affective Response – Robert Hopkins (Sheffield) The Significance of Context in Illustrative Examples – Andrew Leak (UCL) The Graceful, the Ungraceful, and the Disgraceful – Katherine J. Morris (Oxford) Magic in Sartre’s Early Philosophy – Sarah Richmond (UCL) Alienation, Objectification, and the Primacy of Virtue – Alan Thomas (Tilburg) Bad Faith and the Other – Jonathan Webber (Cardiff) Pre-Reflective Self-Consciousness and the Autobiographical Ego – Kenneth Williford (Texas Arlington) Shame and the Exposed Self – Dan Zahavi (Copenhagen) Further information may be found here: http://www.jonathanwebber.co.uk/reading-sartre.html.

Onof, Christian J. "Sartre's Existentialism." INTERNET ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY Updated January 17, 2010.

The philosophical career of Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) focuses, in its first phase, upon the construction of a philosophy of existence known as existentialism. Sartre’s early works are characterized by a development of classic phenomenology, but his reflection diverges from Husserl’s on methodology, the conception of the self, and an interest in ethics. These points of divergence are the cornerstones of Sartre’s existential phenomenology, whose purpose is to understand human existence rather than the world as such. Adopting and adapting the methods of phenomenology, Sartre sets out to develop an ontological account of what it is to be human. The main features of this ontology are the groundlessness and radical freedom which characterize the human condition. These are contrasted with the unproblematic being of the world of things. Sartre’s substantial literary output adds dramatic expression to the always unstable co-existence of facts and freedom in an indifferent world. Sartre’s ontology is explained in his philosophical masterpiece, Being and Nothingness, where he defines two types of reality which lie beyond our conscious experience: the being of the object of consciousness and that of consciousness itself. The object of consciousness exists as “in-itself,” that is, in an independent and non-relational way. However, consciousness is always consciousness “of something,” so it is defined in relation to something else, and it is not possible to grasp it within a conscious experience: it exists as “for-itself.” An essential feature of consciousness is its negative power, by which we can experience “nothingness.” This power is also at work within the self, where it creates an intrinsic lack of self-identity. So the unity of the self is understood as a task for the for-itself rather than as a given. In order to ground itself, the self needs projects, which can be viewed as aspects of an individual’s fundamental project and motivated by a desire for “being” lying within the individual’s consciousness. The source of this project is a spontaneous original choice that depends on the individual’s freedom. However, self’s choice may lead to a project of self-deception such as bad faith, where one’s own real nature as for-itself is discarded to adopt that of the in-itself. Our only way to escape self-deception is authenticity, that is, choosing in a way which reveals the existence of the for-itself as both factual and transcendent. For Sartre, my proper exercise of freedom creates values that any other human being placed in my situation could experience, therefore each authentic project expresses a universal dimension in the singularity of a human life. After a brief summary of Sartre’s life, this article looks at the main themes characterizing Sartre’s early philosophical works. The ontology developed in Sartre’s main existential work, Being and Nothingness, will then be analysed. Finally, an overview is provided of the further development of existentialist themes in his later works. . . . Read the rest here: http://www.iep.utm.edu/sartre-ex/.

Cfp: 17th Annual Conference, UK Sartre Society, Institut Français, September 24, 2010.

We welcome papers (lasting about 30 minutes) on any aspect of Sartre's life or work: philosophy, psychoanalysis, literature, theatre, cinema, biography and autobiography, journalism and the media, politics, etc, as well as on comparative themes: Sartre in relation to his influences, contemporaries or successors. Please send proposals for papers (one side of A4 maximum) by 31 May 2010 to: Dr Angela Kershaw, Secretary of UKSS, Senior Lecturer, Department of French Studies, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT Email: a.kershaw@bham.ac.uk.

"Sartre on Ethics and Existentialism," Institute of Philosophy, University of London, September 17, 2009.

Programme: 10.00 Registration & coffee 10.30 Christine Daigle (Brock) "The Ethics of Authenticity" 11.45 Azzedine Haddour (UCL), "Being Colonized" 1.00 Lunch (own arrangements) 2.30 Andrew Leak (UCL) "The Literary and the Philosophical" 3.45 Tea 4.15 Jonathan Webber (Cardiff) "Bad Faith and the Other" 5.30 Close The conference webpage is here: http://www.philosophy.sas.ac.uk/Sartre.htm.

"Reading Sartre: on Phenomenology and Existentialism," a Series of Three Workshops.

"Sartre on Self and Other," Cardiff University, November 18, 2009: "The Irreal in Non-Representational Painting" – Andreas Elpidorou (Boston) "You Can't Get Something For Nothing: Sartre's Argument for Freedom" – Matt Eshleman (North Carolina Wilmington) "The Transcendental Nature of Sartre's Philosophy" – Sebastian Gardner (UCL) "Imagination and Affective Response" – Robert Hopkins (Sheffield) "Magic in Sartre's Early Philosophy" – Sarah Richmond (UCL) "Sartre on Ethics and Existentialism," Institute of Philosophy, University of London, September 17, 2009: "The Ethics of Authenticity" – Christine Daigle (Brock) "Being Colonized" – Azzedine Haddour (UCL) "The Literary and the Philosophical" – Andrew Leak (UCL) "The Social Dimension of Bad Faith" – Jonathan Webber (Cardiff) "Sartre on Experience and Reality," Cardiff University, July 16, 2009: "Focusing and Positing: the Trouble with Self-Consciousness" – Anthony Hatzimoysis (Athens) "The Ungraceful and the Obscene" – Katherine Morris (Oxford) "Knowledge of Other People" – Tony Stone (London South Bank) "Subjectivity and the Transcendence of the Ego" – Ken Williford (St Cloud) "Shame and Self-Conscious Emotions" – Dan Zahavi (Copenhagen) Further information may be found here: http://www.jonathanwebber.co.uk/reading-sartre.html.

Anderson, Thomas C. Review of Jonathan Webber's THE EXISTENTIALISM OF JEAN-PAUL SARTRE. NDPR (May 2009).

Webber, Jonathan. The Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre. London: Routledge, 2008. On his first page Jonathan Webber informs his readers that his aim "is to present a single coherent picture of the central themes of Sartrean existentialism" (xi) presented in Being and Nothingness and published works immediately preceding and following it. He argues that Sartre's philosophy is an "elaboration of one basic idea," which is that an individual's character consists in the projects the person pursues. The author's thorough explication of Sartre's notion of character is highly original as is his use of that notion to make better sense of bad faith, good faith, sincerity and authenticity. Also, Webber's claim that a study of Sartre's notion of character can contribute significantly to contemporary discussions of ethics, especially virtue ethics, seems to this reviewer on the mark. The Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, which confronts an impressive number of the major interpreters of Sartre, is an extremely valuable scholarly contribution to that study. . . . Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=15985.

Cfp: 17th Biennial Conference, North American Sartre Society, University of Memphis, November 19-21, 2009.

At this year’s conference we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of the Critique of Dialectical Reason as well as 25 years of NASS. Our keynote speaker will be Robert J. C. Young, a leading postcolonial theorist and one of the few who has recognized the centrality of Sartre to postcolonialism. Among his many works, some devoted to Fanon, is the introduction for the English translation of Colonialisme et néocolonialisme, as well as the chapter on Sartre in his White Mythologies. Papers in any area of Sartrean scholarship are welcome (philosophy, literature, psychology, politics, literature, intellectual history, etc.). Reading time for a paper should be 25-30 minutes (to be followed by an optional commentary and 10 minutes of discussion). In addition to individual papers, we would be most interested in receiving suggestions for panel topics that address any aspect of Sartre’s work; its relationship to the work of other authors. Of special interest for the occasion would be papers that address Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason or any aspect of Sartre’s relation to postcolonialism. Visit the conference homepage here: http://sartresociety.org/2009/03/05/cfp-17th-biennial-conference-of-the-north-american-sartre-society/.

Cfp: Annual Conference, UK Sartre Society (UKSS), Institut Français, September 18, 2009.

This is a call for papers for the annual one-day conference of the UK Sartre Society (UKSS), which will be held at the Institut français (17 Queensberry Place, London: nearest tube: South Kensington) on Friday 18 September 2009. We welcome papers (lasting about 30 minutes) on any aspect of Sartre's life or work: literature, theatre, cinema, philosophy, psychoanalysis, biography and autobiography, journalism and the media, politics, etc, as well as on comparative themes: Sartre in relation to his influences, contemporaries or successors. Please send proposals for papers (one side of A4 maximum) by 31 May 2009 to the conference organisers: Dr Benedict O’Donohoe, President of UKSS, Deputy Director, Sussex Language Institute, University of Sussex, BN1 9SH Email: b.o-donohoe@sussex.ac.uk Dr Angela Kershaw, Secretary of UKSS, Senior Lecturer, Department of French Studies, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT Email: a.kershaw@bham.ac.uk. Further information is available on the website of the UK Sartre Society: http://www.sartreuk.org/.

McBride, William L. "Review of Katherine Morris' SARTRE." NDPR June 30, 2008.

Morris, Katherine J. Sartre. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. The book is well-written, generally careful and accurate in its philosophical claims, and skillful at showing, in a number of places, ways in which Sartre's critics have gotten him wrong, while still taking a distance from him on some issues. (Morris likes to use the word "nuance" as a verb -- as, e.g., on p. 99: she is not, she says, contradicting his claim about the relation between bodies and instruments, but "nuancing" it.) The book is also an exercise in challenging both those self-styled "analytic" philosophers who find no value in Continental European thought and those post-modernists and others who take Sartre to be passé, as the author explicitly says at one point in her introduction (p. xiii). In fact, I regard this aspect of the work -- that is, its probing and bridging of the Analytic-Continental "gap" -- as perhaps its greatest single contribution to ongoing philosophical discussion, since in fulfilling its designated function of presenting the basic ideas of the early Sartre, especially the Sartre of Being and Nothingness, it must perforce go over many points that are already rather well known to Sartre scholars. The book's structure is as follows: Following the introduction, there is a twenty-page summary of Sartre's life, and then there are two major sub-divisions and an exceedingly brief "postscript" about ethics. Both sub-divisions are divided into four sections. The first of the two begins with a useful treatment of Sartre's background in the method of Husserlian phenomenology, including a rebuttal to Daniel Dennett's claim that phenomenologists are really just doing anthropology; then interestingly explores the role of Sartrean phenomenology as a "therapy for intellectual prejudices" (p. 51), such as what Morris calls most philosophers' prejudice in favour of knowing over living; and concludes with a clear, standard account of Sartre on the nature of consciousness and then a section on bad faith. The titles of the four sections of the second sub-division are, simply, "The Body," "Life-space," "Others," and "Freedom." The author makes abundant use of Sartre's contemporary Maurice Merleau-Ponty, while (rightly, in my view) arguing that Merleau-Ponty actually built on Sartre's treatment of the lived body (p. xii), contrary to what many Merleau-Pontyans claim, and exhibiting skepticism over Merleau-Ponty's criticism that Sartre is too conceptual (p. 63). In fact, she makes good use of a number of diverse figures, from Kurt Lewin (in the section on life-space) to Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger (the two most frequently cited authors besides Merleau-Ponty and Sartre himself), without ever losing sight of her principal aim of explicating the main points of Sartre's early thought. . . . Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=13405.