Pessimism is back. That will not surprise anyone who has been keeping track of the nation’s pulse over the past several months — or perhaps the last several years. Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” speech, ...

There is much talk in Paris, in Greenwich Village, even in the center of Manhattan, about existence and existentialism. The existentialists assemble in the Cafe de Flore in Paris. There is a series of ...

The philosophy was embraced by film noir, the French New Wave and modern hitmen questioning life’s purpose. Now dust off your turtlenecks, for Sirāt and a new version of Albert Camus’ The Stranger loo ...

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) was a French philosopher and feminist known for her work on gender and identity.

Brendan Canavan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...

Existentialism, which was all the rage in Europe and America in the late ’40s, ’50s, and early ’60s, has lost much discernible meaning. One rarely even hears the term these days. In our age of terror, ...

The literary lion of Paris bounced into Manhattan last week for a brief lecture tour (stops at Yale, Harvard, Princeton). He put up at a genteel midtown hotel—partly because he could find no other ...