The Camus Investigation: Bridging Past & Present

Albert Camus (1913–1960) stands as a quintessential example of the intellectuel engagé—the French public intellectual deeply involved in the moral and political debates of his time. Born into a humble French family in colonial Algeria, Camus rose to global prominence, ultimately receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957. His life and work spanned the vibrant Mediterranean world and the intellectual circles of Paris, marked by a commitment to justice and often controversial stances. Through a combination of readings, films, conversations with experts, and site visits, this course will delve into the many dimensions of Camus’s enduring legacy and the urgent contemporary relevance of his work.

COURSE GOALS

This course seeks to better understand Camus’s work and ever-lasting impact on Francophone and World literature and politics through a cross-disciplinary analysis of a diverse range of texts written by Camus as well as others reflecting the latest production on his work and its relevance in contemporary context. Our readings will provide vivid insights into this foundational camusian body of work across societies and cultures. To learn how this “fascination” for Camus and for his work occurs, students will engage the narratives on multiple levels— literary, visual, social, philosophical, cultural, and political. Readings from Albert Camus, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Edwidge Danticat, Assia Djebar, Kamel Daoud, Vincent Duclert, Mouloud Feraoun, Alice Kaplan, Edward Said, A.B. Yehoshua.

The course is intended :

-To explore the wide-ranging contributions of Camus within a « glocal » political context.

-To delve into the many dimensions of Camus’s enduring legacy, the controversies surrounding his stances during the Algerian War of Independence, and the contemporary relevance of his work.

-To foster analytical and communication skills: public speaking, written analysis, close reading, and critical thinking. 

WEEKLY SCHEDULE:

*Week 1 Introduction & contextualization. 

*Week 2 Camus and Colonial Algeria: Camus the journalist, Algerian Chronicles 

*Week 3 Becoming Camus: The Stranger

*Week 4 Translating The Stranger / The Outsider with guest speaker Prof. Alice Kaplan (zoom) (Yale University), Looking for the Stranger, 2018

*Week 5 Beyond The Stranger: Camus & the Algerian War of Independence ; The Guest, Joshua Cole, film: Loin des Hommes, David Oelhoffen, 2014

*Week 6: Post-colonial readings of The Stranger ; Assia Djebar, Edward Said, MP Ulloa, “Camus in America: an interview with Alice Kaplan & Tobias Wolff”, Books & Ideas, 2016.

*Week 7 The view from Oran : Kamel Daoud, The Meursault Investigation

*Week 8 Camus in the courtroom with special guest speaker Prof. Mugambi Jouet (zoom)(University of Southern California), “A Lost Chapter in Death Penalty History: Furman v. Georgia, Albert Camus, and the Normative Challenge to Capital Punishment”, 2022

* Week 9 Going Global: from the Nobel Prize in Literature (december 1957) to the final public meeting with students in Aix (dec 1959) to the global stage ; Stockholm’s speech, Meyer, La Semaine d’Aix, 1961, Edwige Danticat (Haiti).

* Week 10 Conclusion

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PRIMARY SOURCES : Albert Camus, Nuptials (excerpts), Algerian Chronicles (excerpts), The Stranger, The Guest, Reflections on the Guillotine (excerpts), Nobel Prize Speech in Stockholm, Actuelles IV (excerpts).Kamel Daoud, The Meursault Investigation

ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

David Carrol, Camus the Algerian, Colonialism, Terrorism, Justice, Columbia UP, 2007.

Edwidge Danticat, Créer dangereusement, Grasset, 2012.

Assia Djebar, Algerian White. A Narrative, Seven Stories Press, 2003.

Vincent Duclert, 

Albert Camus: des pays de liberté, Stock, 2020.

Actuelles IV, Gallimard, 2025.

Hughes, Edward J. The Cambridge Companion to Camus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.  

Alice Kaplan (ed.), Algerian Chronicles, Harvard University Press, 2013.

Alice Kaplan, Looking for the Stranger, Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic, Chicago University Press, Gallimard, 2016.

Leona Rittner, W. Scott Haine, and Jeffrey H.Jackson Eds., The Thinking Space: The Café as a Cultural Institution in Paris, Italy and Vienna, Ashgate, 2013.

Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism, Knopf, 1994.

Benjamin Stora, Jean-Baptiste Péretié, Camus brûlant, Stock, 2013.

Marie-Pierre Ulloa, Francis Jeanson, A Dissident Intellectual from the French Resistance to the Algerian War, Stanford University Press, 2008.