In this course, we will consider a number of seminal developments in modern philosophy, psychology, sociology and literature which together mark the emergence of the contemporary period as an “age of anxiety” and of modern man as “homo anxius” (Agata Bielik-Robson). In this context, the disciplinary boundaries are necessarily porous (and the contamination of each by the others has itself been a source of considerable anxiety), but we will nevertheless attempt to distinguish between four distinct lines of thought and imagery. The philosophical genealogy of anxiety runs from Schelling and Kierkegaard to Nietzsche and Heidegger, and it coincides with the momentous shift from “I think” to “I am” as the true ‘subject’ of philosophy. The second “psychological” path of thought – including Sigmund and Anna Freud, Donald Winnicott, Jonathan Lear and Eric Santner – will again challenge the autonomy of the rational subject, but whereas the philosophers sought to foreground the “I am” of existence, these theorists appeal instead to the newly discovered realm of the unconscious. The opening and closing lectures will provide a sociological frame for our investigations, acknowledging the unprecedented explosion of anxiousness in the age of social media and examining individual and society-wide responses in the important work of Scott Stossel and Jonathan Haidt. Finally, we will sample a number of short stories (Lydia Davis, Octavia Butler) and plays (Jean-Paul Sartre) which cast a sobering light on the distinctive anxieties of contemporary life.
