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Alienation, ambiguity, anxiety, absurdity, authenticity, belief, despair, dread, death, freedom, joy, and responsibility—all of these are concerns associated with existentialism and its pursuit of what it means to exist, to be a self, to be a being. This course is structured around a series of critical engagements with some of the most prominent and profound thinkers who contributed to the formation, development, and extension of existentialism; together we will trace trajectories of existentialist thought from early articulations in the 19th century (Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky), through prominent European pronouncements in the wake of the First and Second World Wars (Jaspers, Sartre, De Beauvoir), to the works of Afro-diasporic writers (Fanon, Wright, Baldwin) who explore the complex relation between being and being black. Through these engagements we will approach existentialism not just as a series of abstract claims, questions, and concerns, but also as a critical method for interrogating issues related to the embodied, interpersonal, and historical dimensions of human life. What critical resources can we find in existentialism for illuminating questions of identity and difference and for making sense of contemporary struggles regarding race, gender, class, and sexuality?