Abstracts

Eric Berg: “Lessons in Contrast from The Fall”

Camus uses topography as a powerful ontological symbol in his work, using geographical context to drive epistemology, character development, and clarity of argument.  The setting for The Fall is Amsterdam, a region below sea level, shrouded by fog and most of the narrative takes place in the rain, the argument is by far the least clear of his major works, epistemologically confused, the setting is dark, the main character is frustratingly duplicitous, and the interlocutor has absconded from the text.  It is my thesis that Camus intentionally placed The Fall in Amsterdam to drive the epistemological confusion, elusive characters, and hidden arguments.  By placing The Fall in Amsterdam, as compared to North Africa, he sets this novel in sharp contrast to his other works to the experienced reader, and it should not come as a surprise to the reader that the novel’s main character is a chimera, the argument unclear, and the setting bleak.  Furthermore, Camus steals language from theology to further confuse the argument by drawing important Christian symbols into the text and he also makes many overt parallels to his own life, leaving the reader confused about the intention of the text and its relationship to the author.  Camus puts forth an extraordinary effort to confuse the reader and hide the argument in the fog of Amsterdam.  The end result is a study in human nature illuminating the lowest form in Jean-Baptiste and the higher form in a composition of characters in The Plague.

Jackson Doughart: “A Neoconservative Study of Neutrality and Allegiance in ‘The Guest’”

Albert Camus’s short story ‘The Guest’ (Exile and the Kingdom,1957), explores two themes of critical importance to neoconservatism: neutrality and allegiance. Though Camus might initially seem an unlikely expositor of this political and philosophical persuasion, the present essay demonstrates that the neoconservative thought of Irving Kristol, which comments extensively upon these subjects, finds convincing expression in Camus’s story.  Daru, the protagonist, attempts neutrality in three ways: (1) in point of action, by allowing the Arab prisoner to make his own choice between exile and incarceration; (2) in point of judgment, by electing to withhold appraisal of the prisoner’s character; and (3) in point of allegiance, by failing to recognize that his own identity as a pied-noir (French Algerian) is inescapable.  Though his attempt to transcend race and culture is deserving of admiration, his inability to see an essential goodness in his own side and an essential badness in the other is integral to his downfall. His relativism condemns him.  As one learns from Daru’s ultimate fate, the notion of non-alignment is illusory, and the decision not to act is itself an action with consequences.

Ingrid Fernandez: “Salamano and His Dog”

This piece analyzes the presence of different type of bodies how these material manifestations of identity are crucial for an understanding of Meursault’s universe and the universe of the novel as a whole. I focus on the supporting characters of Salamano and his dog as crucial to the essence of the novel. Secondly, I approach Meursault’s relations to others and the world by looking at Camus’ essays and journal entries on the subjects of love and emotion in personal relationships, including the relationship to one’s country (one’s earth). I feel Meursault is often seen as a nihilist who, by accepting absurdity, rejects the ability to feel emotions of love. In contrast, I locate Mersault’s manifestations of empathy, especially in relation to his recently deceased mother, in his exchanges with Salamano and his dog.

Peter Francev: “Homo-Eroticism in the Later Works”

While my paper is a constant “work-in-progress”, I plan to present findings and thoughts on the idea of homo-eroticism in the later works (predominantly in The Plague and “The Guest”). The idea of an unspoken bond between individuals of the same sex creates a(n) (un)necessary tension within the confines of the homo-social boundaries of the relationships between characters- namely Rieux and Tarrou and Daru and the prisoner. While Camus never explicitly meant for the characters to be considered homosexual (nor could have he written about such frankness is in time), I argue that the tension and seeming desire are evident, if only just below the surface.

George Heffernan: “The World According to Meursault”

Meursault, the protagonist of Albert Camus’ The Stranger, is a peculiar man who, by his own account, lives a life of immediacy, indifference, and insensitivity.  He reacts unsentimentally to his mother’s death, his lover’s affection, and his pal’s brutality.  He callously helps his pal abuse his mistress, depravedly kills her brother, and feels no remorse for anything.  At first sight, this behavior seems easy to explain, since Meursault, though an intelligent and literate man, lives an unreflective and unregretful life:  he has given up his studies, lost the habit of examining himself, and insists that he has always been right about everything.  On closer scrutiny, however, Meursault also displays a remarkable capacity for reflection on himself, observation of others, and recollection of things.  He exhibits sympathy to a lonely neighbor, explains movies to a dull colleague, and cautions his pal against shooting an assailant.  Thus Meursault does not lack empathy.  Nor does his killing of the Arab on the beach occur without thought.  Yet Meursault’s worldview then poses problems when he expresses his opinions on existential matters.  For he claims that nothing matters, that life is absurd, that people never change their lives, that a man’s dog is worth as much as his wife, and that, since everyone is equally guilty and condemned to die, it does not matter how long one lives or how one dies.  He also rejects the sacrifice of Christ, denies the existence of God, and asserts that life is not worth the trouble of living it.  Yet, as a condemned murderer awaiting execution, he seems to find the inner peace to accept the alleged indifference of things.  Thus Meursault becomes for some readers an existentialist hero, a courageous man who lives a meaningless life and dies a happy death.  With Meursault, thus this reading, Camus has created a figure whose attitude that “life is absurd” is established as philosophically tenable.  In this paper, I challenge this interpretation by suggesting that there is a sustainable reading of The Stranger according to which, far from defending Meursault’s absurdist worldview, Camus is reducing it to the absurd.  In effect, he does this by encouraging thoughtful readers to question Meursault’s view that, since human beings are not immortal, their lives are meaningless.  I do not argue that Camus was wrong to understand Meursault as a man animated by a deep passion for the absolute truth.  I do suggest that it is wise to understand Meursault’s absurdist philosophy differently from how Meursault did, and especially to challenge his assumption that he is “just like everybody else”.  I also explore the possibility that Meursault’s philosophy of life differs from Camus’.  Above all, I propose to take seriously not only Meursault’s assertions but also his arguments.  Finally, I consider the possibility that “rational” logic cannot do justice to the “absurd” logic of Meursault.

Giovanni Gaetani: “The Eternal Return of Sisyphus”

In our work we will analyse Camus's interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy, from its youthful passionate approval to its final critique/defence in The rebel. Some considerations will be made as well on its supposed second thought in the last years. We will also present our interpretation of Sisyphus as a Nietzschian character, seen as the embodiment of the man ready to overcome the ethical trial of the Eternal Return of the Same.

Peadar Kearney: “Stylistic Extremes in Camus’s Novel(istic) Writing”

There is recognition of an absurd that does not prevent going beyond the limits of absurdity. Through pessimism this tragic separation of the human call and the world’s unreasonable silence is evoked; the absurd is born from the confrontation of the two. Yet, through faith in man’s capacity to be free, the call to revolt against the absurd is made. Whether passively in ignoring it or actively through recognising it, the absurd is constantly opposed. “I revolt, therefore we are”; this confidence inspires a living stylistic lyricism that is directly opposed the sombre absurd.

Simon Lea: “Camus and the Laws of Nature”

Camus' Myth of Sisyphus uses a state of nature argument in order to discover values outside of human society. The values on offer within the society of the 'absurd man' are discovered through experience of the absurd to be worthless. Camus examines his conception of the state of nature to find a reason to live. It is a project similar to that of Thomas Hobbes who considered the state of nature to find a 'generall Rule, found out by Reason, by which a man is forbidden to do, that which is destructive of his life'. Both Camus and Hobbes, exactly 300 years apart, produced great, and greatly controversial, works of political philosophy. Camus in The Rebel and Hobbes in Leviathan, took the values discovered in the state of nature and used them to construct an ethics of rebellion. In their later work, Camus' The Fall and Hobbes' Behemoth, they both tackle 'vainglory' and oppression. In the first part of my paper I will compare and contrast Camus and Hobbes' use of the state of nature. In the second part I will compare and contrast Camus' Jean-Baptiste Clamence and Hobbe's Foole. Finally, I will give an overview of what can be learned from this comparison of two highly controversial and often maligned philosophers.

Ben O’Donohoe: “Camus’s Les Justes: A Rebuff to Sartre’s Les Mains sales?”

These two strikingly similar plays fall into that period at the end of WW2 when Camus and Sartre enjoyed an uneasy friendship, an unspoken rivalry and a comparable degree of fame in post-war Paris. The period is marked also by the increasing division of the industrialised world into two super-power blocs of influence, inspired by radically opposed ideologies, entailing moral conflicts for these two leading “engaged” intellectuals, within themselves and between each other.

Sartre’s depiction of conflict between a rigid ideological socialism, incarnated by his protagonist Hugo Barine, and a savvy political pragmatism, embodied by Hoederer, found an attentive audience in April 1948, when much of the post-war settlement of Europe had yet to be resolved. Sartre’s ambiguous argument in favour of Realpolitik, even at the expense of fundamental ethical principles, appeared to favour collusion with ideological enemies and to denigrate a cherished western self-image as morally impeccable: the means are justified by the ends, Hoederer insists, although that necessarily involves ‘getting one’s hands dirty’.

Eighteen months later, Camus responded with Les Justes, in which recognisably Camusian characters construct an implicit rebuttal of the (arguably) cynical Sartrean position. Ivan Kaliayev—like Hugo, an idealist and an intellectual—repudiates the criticism of his ideologically rigorous colleague, Stepan Fedorov, who rebukes him for refusing to blow up the Archduke’s carriage merely because there were children on board. Unabashedly laying claim to ‘la quête de soi’ as part of his moral self-justification, and evoking other typical Camusian themes along his way—la comédie, l’engagement, l’absurde, la révolte—Kaliayev vindicates the moral conscience of the individual in the midst of collective action, and in so doing delivers a counterblast to the relatively amoral Sartrean argument, as represented by Hoederer. For Camus, the ends do not invariably justify the means. There are lines to be drawn in the name of an ethical stance which, ultimately, guarantees a triumph of human dignity over the temptations of merely gradualist and morally compromised ‘progress’.

Placing roughly equal emphasis on both plays, this paper will seek to sketch out the ground of each playwright’s notion of morality in politics, as personified by their respective protagonists, Hugo and Ivan. In particular, we shall interrogate this in the light of their common mortal fate: arguably, each of them dies not only a remorseless, but also an unenlightened and futile death. Their attitudes will be contrasted with those of more pragmatic and realistic characters such as Olga and Hoederer in Les Mains sales , or Fedorov and Annenkov in Les Justes . This will lead us to consider whether Camus had, in effect, already laid down a challenge to Sartre which both anticipated and provoked the latter’s coruscating critique of L’Homme révolté, and of Camus himself, in Les Temps modernes. In short, was it Camus who started the infamous quarrel that ended their famous friendship?

Nicholas Padfield: “Form and Feeling in Camus’s ‘L’Envers et l’Endroit’”

The study takes for its starting point Camus’ remarks in the 1958 Préface that he would not wish to deny anything of what was expressed in his first book, L’Envers et l’Endroit, published 21 years earlier, but that he had resisted re-publication because its form had always seemed to him to be maladroit.  This distinction between considerations of form and the emotional sources which demand to find expression in writing is examined in the context of Camus’ earliest writings.  Chapter 1 notes the quest for a greater objectivity in his writing which can be traced in the Notes de Lecture, in the other comments he was making in Cahier 1 of the Carnets in 1933, and in early sketches such as La Maison mauresque and Les Voix du quartier pauvre.  Chapter 2 deals with L’Envers et l’Endroit itself and seeks to map the contours of feeling which can be discerned in the five constituent essays.  The polarisation implicit in the title is examined in the context of the thematic material which plays feelings of exile, isolation and fear against a counter-current of emotion conveying the joys of a passionate engagement in life’s abundance.  Chapter 3 is more analytical and considers questions of genre, temporality and narrative voice in Camus’ experiments with different ways of telling in the collection.  It goes on to discuss the ways in which the five constituent parts which make up L’Envers et l’Endroit are linked together, and the extent to which they make a coherent whole.  The study concludes by considering whether it was the undisguised subjectivity of the writing or the overall structure of the collection which was most exercising Camus in the 1958 Préface.

Luke Richardson: “The Challenge of Nemesis: moderation and change in Camus’ unfinished essay”

Albert Camus, in a reference in his Carnets, delineated his major intellectual projects in terms of Greek myths: ‘I. The myth of Sisyphus (Absurd) – II. The myth of Prometheus (revolt) – III. The myth of Nemesis.’ (Camus, Notebooks, 1965)

The first two myths are well known, Le Mythe de Siyphe his first book length essay and the figure of Prometheus appearing substantially in L’Homme révolté as a kind of standard-bearer for the philosophy of revolt.  The third myth, Nemesis, is a far more complicated and yet compelling problem for students of Camus’ philosophy.

While his unfinished novel Le Premier homme (1994) is often studied after its posthumous publication, Camus’ plans for another long essay on the theme of Nemesis have received little critical attention.  The essay is in reality less unfinished than barely begun by the time of Camus’ death in 1960. Any attempt to understand its planned contents and themes relies of a handful of notes in his Carnets and references in other essays.  Nevertheless a picture emerges of the next phase of Camus’ thought that remains something worthy of examination as we consider his work as a whole. What did this next philosophical movement mean? How did it fit in the development of his thought from the Absurd to Revolt? How does it relate (or indeed does it relate at all) to the situation in contemporary Algeria or to the Le Premier homme, which was being written concurrently?

My paper will argue that Nemesis was a bold continuation of the philosophy of moderation (‘la mésure) that had begun to emerge in the essays L’Homme révolté and L’Été.  I will consider how much we can understand about Camus’ late thought, discuss our potential for reconstruction and the significance of the choice of Nemesis as a figure, and conclude with a consideration of what this philosophy meant in terms of Camus’ thought, his contemporary political situation and further its potential implications in the modern world.

Ron Srigley: “Camus’s Sacred Thought”

Albert Camus was one of Christianity’s most astute critics. He argued that rather than being a source of meaning, Christianity had been responsible for a nihilistic emptying of the world’s substance. Yet Camus also argued that modernity’s worst excesses were traceable to its repudiation of any “sense of the sacred.” The complex nature of Camus’ thoughts about these matters is indicated by a late remark in the Notebooks: “I often read that I am atheistic; I hear people speak of my atheism. Yet these words say nothing to me; for me they have no meaning. I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.” My paper examines Camus’ account of the sacred and explores the manner in which departs from the religiosity of both modernity and Christianity.