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The question about the meaning of existence is as old as philosophy itself. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, however, this question received renewed attention due to various modern processes, chief among which was the process of secularization, giving rise to a philosophical movement that has come to be known as existentialism. This course will offer an examination of key themes, concepts, and doctrines that are associated with existentialist thought including: the rejection of the Aristotelian-scholastic distinction between essence and existence; the rejection of the Cartesian notions that “nothingness possesses no attributes or qualities” and that the infinite is prior to the finite; the problem of repetition and the thought experiment of the eternal return; the problems of death and suicide; and the philosophical significance of feelings such as anxiety, boredom, and nausea, and of experiences such as loneliness and despair. Reading will include a selection of texts by Pascal, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Shestov, Jaspers, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, and others.