Abstracts

Kimberly Baltzer-Jaray: ‘Love from a Camus Existential perspective: We must Imagine Sisyphus in Love’

I want to extend Camus’ analysis of the absurd found in The Myth of Sisyphus and speak about love. When we look closely at the three consequences of the absurd, it is here that love must exist:  it is in our revolt, it is a bound up in our actions and understanding of freedom, and it is the source of our passion. The person who lives in conscious revolt of the tension and truth of the absurd must have and feel profound love – for themselves and for something about their life – in order to keep that fight going. Just as love is friendship set on fire, love must also be the flame inside the rebel who, like Sisyphus, unceasingly struggles to make meaning in a meaningless world where death looms. To own his fate and that boulder, Sisyphus must feel love ... and he must feel love to be happy as well.  Love in revolt is rather absurd. 

Eric Berg: ‘Albert Canus: With Continual Reference to Albert Camus and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’

When Albert Camus arrived in New York at the Hudson Port on March 25, 1946 aboard the USS Oregon, he was detained for questioning by American immigration officials. The American Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I) had started a file on one “Albert Canus”, intending an investigation of Albert Camus, and this caused Camus to be detained before entry to the United States was granted.  Camus was being investigated as a foreign journalist with possible ties to communism and an advocate of a curious philosophical movement called “existentialism”.  In April of 2018 I received 35 pages of slightly redacted FBI papers through the Freedom of Information Act. This was the “Camus file”. In this presentation and accompanying paper, I will illuminate what is in the file, take a close look at the circumstances of his visit to the United States that triggered an investigation, and what the F.B.I learned about Camus and existentialism. As a bonus, we shall also learn the fate of a working-class French seaman named Albert Canus.

Gina Marie Bleen: ‘Camus, Cormery, and the French-Algerian Community; Pied-Noir Identity in Le Premier Homme’

This discussion will examine Albert Camus’s unfinished, posthumous, semi-autobiographical novel Le Premier Homme. Set in the impoverished Belcourt quarter of Algiers, it is his final “site of recollection” as he searches for his origins. This “roman inachevé” differs significantly from his other writing in that it is deeply personal and provides an insight into his and his parents’ humble pied-noir beginnings. An example of autofiction, Camus describes his relationships with family, friends, and teachers, and presents his story through the protagonist Jacques Cormery. Although it remained unpublished for more than thirty years because of political strife in Algeria post-independence, Camus’s daughter Catherine decided to publish it in 1994 when Algeria was in the midst of another armed conflict.

Specifically, I will explore Camus’s ambivalent representations of Algeria and France. His stance on the Algerian War of Independence left an unsettled legacy. In spite of that, and his untimely death in 1960, one year before Algeria gained independence, I argue that Camus mythologizes the colonial past and the pied-noir community, yet simultaneously supports an all-inclusive nation. His poverty and loss, as well as his colonial education and literary success, are all consolidated within his prohibitive vision of Algeria’s future that often distrusts Algerian independence. In the end, Camus’s imagined French-Algerian community is a hybrid space that epitomizes a transcultural site, as he possesses a transnational Mediterranean, pied-noir identity.

Aoife Connolly: ‘Confronting the Colony through Fiction: Camus’s Algerian Texts’

In France, continued controversies surrounding Albert Camus point to the unresolved legacies of the country’s colonial past in addition to some of the identity challenges of its former settlers in Algeria, a million of whom fled to France as independence approached. Against the backdrop of postcolonial critiques or analyses seeking to rehabilitate the author, this study examines Camus’s Algerian origins from a nuanced viewpoint. It explores the writer’s fictionalised Algerian-based narratives to reveal his engagement with the impact of colonialism, including its imminent demise.

This study also argues that the use of fiction facilitated Camus’s elaboration of a settler identity that includes a distinctive model of masculinity performed within a French Algerian “family”. It sheds new light on the Camusian mother figure by examining her through the lens of the colonial context and her association with the settler woman. Finally, as different groups from the Algerian conflict continue to put forward their narratives in a bid to win enduring “memory wars” on the subject, this paper points to Camus’s influence on subsequent post-independence narratives by the former settlers, in addition to other, traditionally opposed memory communities from the war. 

Meaghan Emery: “Justice for the ‘False Brother’: Albert Camus, Post-War Justice, and the Case of the Harkis”

By posing the question: in essence, Whither justice?, in his July 1945 journal entry, Camus was implicitly referring to the human cost of the uprising followed by the colonial regime’s harsh crackdown on the Sétif pro-independence demonstrators. The government’s disproportionate response to the horrific spectacle of the disfigured corpses of European Algerians killed in the days and weeks following the May 8 march momentarily suppressed the nascent uprising. However, it additionally frayed the bonds existing between the two populations and set Algeria on an extremist course. A decorated sergeant in the Algerian Tirailleurs and former member of the pro-reformist Jeunes Algériens who became disillusioned by the failure of the government’s integration initiatives, Ahmed Ben Bella formed the FLN along with Hocine Ait Ahmed in Cairo on November 1, 1954. “The horrors of the Constantine area in May 1945 succeeded in persuading me of the only path: Algeria for Algerians,” he wrote. Shortly afterward, as early recruits were being eliminated, terror displaced idealism as the main impetus within the FLN: “Les responsables utilisèrent la menace, la peur. Ils commirent de regrettables erreurs poussant les braves gens dans les bras de l’armée et des autorités françaises. Ce fut le cas de nombreux Algériens, devenus ‘harkis’ malgré eux.” This paper will focus on the harkis, indigenous Algerians who worked as auxiliaries for the French army during the war, and specifically on the question of whether Camusian ethics can ultimately lead to justice for the brother whose revolt led him to aid his brother’s enemy. It will take us into an assessment of the ends, particularly poignant now that President Emmanuel Macron has acknowledged the French army’s systematic use of torture in Algeria, whereas the harkis and their families -- viewed as accomplices to this system -- are still barred re-entry to Algeria.

Peter Francev:  ‘Albert Camus, Edith Stein, and the Problem of Empathy’

Whilst there is no mention of the phenomenology or ethics of Edith Stein (1891-1942) in the fiction and non-fiction of Albert Camus (1913-1960), one can easily surmise that Camus, being a part of the Parisian café scene during the years including and beyond the second world war, would have encountered some discussions of Stein’s thought vis a vis through Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) or Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961). It is then the purpose of this paper to set out and accomplish several things: firstly, I would like to provide a very brief historical introduction to Stein; secondly, I should like to offer readers a concise summary of Stein’s principle text on empathy (On the Problem of Empathy)[4]; finally, I would like to offer an exposition and analysis of Stein’s concept of empathy, from a phenomenological perspective, in Camus’s following works: The Stranger, The Plague, The Fall, and ‘The Guest’[5]. As I will illustrate, each of these works will demonstrate a different perspective of Stein’s theory which will clearly show Camus’s understanding and engagement with empathy.

George Gaiko: ‘The Study of the Fundamental Principles of Object Oriented Ontology Using the Principles of Albert Camus’s Philosophy’

The philosophy of Albert Camus is a unique case of a theory that does not use any fundamental principle. He adhered to Socrates maxim “I know that I know nothing” more consistently, which allowed him to describe a way to understand the world as devoid of primary principles and basic statements. Graham Harman's Object Oriented Ontology is presented to us as the most consistent in attempt to explain the structure of the world without primary principles. OOO achieves this by creating a world order scheme in which objects must interact in a special way - remaining unknown to each other to the end. Objects touch and slip away from each other during interaction. There is no primary basic element in this scheme and all objects are equal. Its weakness is that It does not describe why and how interaction of this kind is possible. Albert Camus offered us a powerful tool - a universal theory of knowledge, which explains that absolute knowledge is unattainable. In the "language of ontology" this means the absence of a basic element, a fundamental principle. Our analysis showed (this is the key point of our study) that cognition is a special case of interaction, having the same nature as any other interaction of objects. Having substantiated this statement, we get the opportunity, using the Camus theory, to explain the paradoxical interaction between objects in the OOO. We are talking about the fact that OOO paints the world structure without a primary foundation, and Camus explains how it works. We have two sides of the same coin, where both theories describe the same thing (the universe) from different sides – sides of the theory of knowledge and ontology (we also explain that definition). We will get not only the structure of being (available in OOO), but also an explanation of how the structure works. Note that only now, in conjunction with ontology, we have the opportunity to understand the logical, “philosophy” potential of Camus philosophy and its power. 

David Langwallner: ‘Albert Camus: The Crucial Figure of Our Time: The Most Important Public Intellectual’

This article involves an analysis of The Meursault Investigation by Daoud and to a lesser extent They Were Coming for Him by Mahou both texts revelatory of how Albert Camus has become hugely relevant to our times. The Meursault Investigation though critical of his putative racism, unfairly in my view, is decidedly supportive of his hostility towards extremism whether religious or communist. The book is also relevant in focusing on his attention to the precious commodity of the truth in our post truth universe and his inner moral core. This paper continues that, in the light of those two books his status as, in the view of the author, the greatest public intellectual of the preceding century is clearer and clearer. It argues that a great public intellectual should be a communicator and write and/or speak in an accessible way without simplifying or traducing matters. In this respect, the article compares Camus to others such as Hitchens, Chomsky, Habermas and his intellectual contemporaries to demonstrate how favourable he compares. Finally, the essay looks at his texts to evaluate the contribution and highlight the themes of anti-extremism, the hatred of fundamentalism, the invocation of reason and the necessity for political engagement.

Simon Lea: "The Problem of 'Dirty Hands' in the plays of Camus, Sartre and Weil"

In this paper I examine the ways in which so-called 'dirty hands' are  explored in the plays of Camus, Sartre and Weil. I will attempt to show that while Sartre and Weil offer accounts of the problem from either end of the spectrum, only Camus attempts a solution to the problem. Sartre's "Dirty Hands" has, thanks in large part to Walzer's seminal paper "Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands," become the go-to account of the problem and for good reason however I will argue that Camus's "Just Assassins" is of more use to present day applied ethics.

David Platten: ‘Mirror Men: Abd Al Malik / Albert Camus’

In his book Camus, l’art de la révolte (2016) popular French hip hop and slam artist Abd Al Malik writes: ‘Camus est un miroir, et je m’y regarde’. In the case of Abd Al Malik this mirroring is intimate; the hip hop artist maps his destiny onto that of Camus, tracing the arc of his own life story over that of an artist, who lived long ago in a different place, to a degree that verges on the eerie. However the story is not told in a linear fashion. Rather, Camus, l’art de la révolte offers bursts of lyric, verse and epithet, along with narrative vignettes recounting moments in a life apparently mediated by Camus, whose spectral presence is alleged on occasions to have been so strong as to alter the course of events.

Since the millennium much excellent scholarship has demonstrated not only the importance of Camus to the century in which he lived but also to the vicissitudes of the world in which we now find ourselves. The case of Abd Al Malik is one of a number of instances of artistic and intellectual endeavour in contemporary Francophone culture that more or less explicitly dialogue with facets of Camus’ legacy. However, unlike Kamel Daoud’s Meursault, contre-enquête (2015), which, through the reification of the nameless Arab victim in L’Etranger, speaks in counterpoint to Camus, Abd Al Malik’s Camus, l’art de la révolte teems with examples of prosopopoeia, whereby a speaker or writer communicates to the audience by speaking as another person. My hunch is that this is part of a trend. In this paper I shall explore how this trend plays out, what this communion can tell us not only about the art and thinking of Abd Al Malik but also about the value of L’Envers et l’Endroit, one of several of Camus’ works which are foregrounded in Abd Al Malik’s text. I shall conclude by suggesting other instances where a similar kind of mirroring is staged, works which provide both for renewed reflection on the literature of Camus, and for spectacular, Camus-inflected illuminations of contemporary culture, society and politics.  

Luke Richardson: ‘On est toujours libre aux dépens de quelqu’un’: Providing an Algerian context to Albert Camus’ Caligula.’

Albert Camus’ play Caligula (1944) remains perhaps his best known and most often produced dramatic work. Critical readings have focused on the play as a vehicle of Camus’ philosophy of the Absurd, the temporal and intellectual contemporary of L’Étranger (1942) and Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942).  What is less discussed is how the play relates to Camus’ concept of the ancient world, the idea of Caligula the Roman.  Equally there has been little examination of the idea of modern colonial context, of Caligula the Algerian.  To remove Algeria from any of Camus’ work is impossible yet in the case of Caligula serious discussion is lacking.  My paper will discuss the play as a part of Camus’ reception of Rome in a broader sense, as applicable to the French Algerian situation, and finally how the Algerian and Roman contexts of the play are in fact fundamentally intertwined.

The paper will be in two sections.  The first will discuss Caligula in the context of French Algerian literature and politics.  Camus’ opinions on ancient Rome were strong and saw it as a culture of repression, vulgarity and violent totalitarianism.  This must be contextualized against not only the use of Rome in the symbolic language of contemporary European Fascism but also more prominently in the use of Rome by pro-colonialists in French Algeria.  The colonial government sponsored excavations of Roman ruins and prominent writers like Bertrand, Bossier and Gsell’s heavily relied on Rome and ‘Latin Africa’ as a source of precedence over the native population.  Camus rejection of these aims (although this is a rejection that is fraught with ambiguities and paradoxes of its own) was key to his rejection of Rome.  Caligula presents a picture of Roman society that is rarely questioned by critics.  Yet it is a society of based on dictatorial power, the suppression of individual freedom and democracy.  This idea of Rome is informed by Camus’ relationship to Algeria and his interaction with its literary and political discourses.

The second section will look at Caligula more closely in terms of Camus’ problematic “rejection” of colonialism.  If the play can be seen as a rejection of Fascism and tyranny can we apply its models to the growing anti-colonial uprising in Algeria?  There is a great deal of material in the play that seemingly relates to the nature of colonial rule.  Is Camus’ critiquing colonialism or is this an example of his ability to critique Fascism and political totality without extending this criticism to French policy in its colonies?  If, as Caligula says of himself and his subjects, ‘On est toujours libre aux dépens de quelqu’un’, is the same not true of the modern colonizer?  This section will read Caligula through the writings of Aimé Césaire and Pierre Bourdieu, through whom another quite distinct Algerian context emerges.

Stephen Sullivan: ‘Was Camus an, Atheist, Agnostic, or Both?’

Virtually all Albert Camus scholars agree that he did not believe in in a personal God (though some find a mystical pantheism in his fiction and “lyrical essays” from the 1930s).   Many find it obvious that he was an atheist; others (influenced in part by his explicit rejection of atheism in the 1950s)  are equally convinced that he was an agnostic.  What commentators who reach such conclusions rarely do is to explain clearly what they mean by ‘atheist’ and ‘agnostic’.  In this presentation I will begin by offering definitions that I think capture much philosophical and theological discourse about atheism and agnosticism (though I deny that the terms have fixed, univocal meanings).  Atheism I treat as an ontological position denying God’s existence, agnosticism as an epistemological position denying human knowledge of God’s existence or nonexistence. I note that so understood, these two views are actually compatible with one another. Only then do I go on to cite detailed evidence in Camus’ writings that he was an atheist and/or an agnostic.  I argue (drawing in part on two earlier papers of mine for the Journal of Camus Studies) that he was most likely an agnostic atheist:  that is, he disbelieved in God but did not claim to know of God’s nonexistence.  Finally, I distinguish between “friendly” and “unfriendly” atheism, argue that Camus accepted the friendly variety, and suggest that for that reason (among others) Camus was understandably put off by the contempt for theistic religion that was so common among the Sartrean existentialists from whom he distanced himself in the 1950s.