Working together as a community of inquiry, everyone on the module will critically analyse some classic works of Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Frantz Fanon, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Our focus will be on theoretical texts, but we may also will study some fiction. We will be concerned with exactly how these texts are to be understood as well as with considering some of their potential contributions to current philosophy.  

• demonstrate knowledge of the central arguments of French existentialist thought 
• identify and engage with issues of textual interpretation 
• interpret and engage with critical evaluations of complex texts 
• communicate and justify independent interpretations and evaluations of complex texts 

The module will be delivered through a mix of large group and small group sessions, including, where relevant, asynchronous materials such as lecture recordings. Full details on the delivery mode of this module will be available on Learning Central at the start of the academic year – and may be, in part, determined by Welsh Government and Public Health Wales guidance.   

Students will practise and develop the following skills: 

• Critical thinking: the ability to understand, structure and critically evaluate the key claims and arguments made in complex written texts and discussions – achieved through reading, small-group discussion in seminars, plenary discussions in seminars, reflecting on lecture materials, essay and exam preparation and writing. 
• Oral communication: the ability to formulate and articulate critical thinking orally in a clear and respectful manner that others can grasp and engage with and to contribute to collaborative inquiry through oral discussion – achieved through small group and plenary discussions throughout the module. 
• Writing: the ability to structure a written report that builds a high-level argument on the basis of precise analyses  – achieved through explicit training in preparation for the formative and summative written work. 
• Organisation: the ability to organise and coordinate workloads – achieved through balancing reading and note-taking, critical analysis, post-seminar reflection and note writing, and essay and exam answer planning and writing. 
• Collaboration: developing ideas and inquiry collaboratively and responding sensitively to points made by others – achieved through small-group and plenary discussions throughout the module contact and non-contact time. 

The assessment(s) for this module will be published in due course.

The syllabus will focus on extracts from central works of mid-twentieth-century French existential philosophy, such as Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, Albert Camus’s The Outsider, Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, and Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. These will be supplemented in the coursepack with recent articles analysing them. The module will comprise our collective critical discussions of these extracts and articles. The coursepack will include a list of suggested further reading for each of the extracts of classic works discussed.