The Existentialist Moment: The Rise of Sartre as a Public Intellectual
Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2015

Jean-Paul Sartre is often seen as the quintessential public intellectual, but this was not always the case. Until the mid-1940s he was not so well-known, even in France. Then suddenly, in a very short period of time, Sartre became an intellectual celebrity. How can we explain this remarkable transformation?

The Existentialist Moment retraces Sartre s career and provides a compelling new explanation of his meteoric rise to fame. Baert takes the reader back to the confusing and traumatic period of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath and shows how the unique political and intellectual landscape in France at this time helped to propel Sartre and existentialist philosophy to the fore. The book also explores why, from the early 1960s onwards, in France and elsewhere, the interest in Sartre and existentialism eventually waned. The Existentialist Moment ends with a bold new theory for the study of intellectuals and a provocative challenge to the widespread belief that the public intellectual is a species now on the brink of extinction.

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The Existentialist Moment: The Rise of Sartre as a Public Intellectual
Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2015

Jean-Paul Sartre is often seen as the quintessential public intellectual, but this was not always the case. Until the mid-1940s he was not so well-known, even in France. Then suddenly, in a very short period of time, Sartre became an intellectual celebrity. How can we explain this remarkable transformation?

The Existentialist Moment retraces Sartre s career and provides a compelling new explanation of his meteoric rise to fame. Baert takes the reader back to the confusing and traumatic period of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath and shows how the unique political and intellectual landscape in France at this time helped to propel Sartre and existentialist philosophy to the fore. The book also explores why, from the early 1960s onwards, in France and elsewhere, the interest in Sartre and existentialism eventually waned. The Existentialist Moment ends with a bold new theory for the study of intellectuals and a provocative challenge to the widespread belief that the public intellectual is a species now on the brink of extinction.

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The Existentialist Moment: The Rise of Sartre as a Public Intellectual

The Existentialist Moment: The Rise of Sartre as a Public Intellectual

by Patrick Baert
The Existentialist Moment: The Rise of Sartre as a Public Intellectual

The Existentialist Moment: The Rise of Sartre as a Public Intellectual

by Patrick Baert

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Overview

Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2015

Jean-Paul Sartre is often seen as the quintessential public intellectual, but this was not always the case. Until the mid-1940s he was not so well-known, even in France. Then suddenly, in a very short period of time, Sartre became an intellectual celebrity. How can we explain this remarkable transformation?

The Existentialist Moment retraces Sartre s career and provides a compelling new explanation of his meteoric rise to fame. Baert takes the reader back to the confusing and traumatic period of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath and shows how the unique political and intellectual landscape in France at this time helped to propel Sartre and existentialist philosophy to the fore. The book also explores why, from the early 1960s onwards, in France and elsewhere, the interest in Sartre and existentialism eventually waned. The Existentialist Moment ends with a bold new theory for the study of intellectuals and a provocative challenge to the widespread belief that the public intellectual is a species now on the brink of extinction.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780745685403
Publisher: Polity Press
Publication date: 07/20/2015
Pages: 240
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Patrick Baert is Professor of Social Theory at the University of Cambridge

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1 Occupation, intellectual collaboration and the Resistance

Chapter 2 The purge of collaborationist intellectuals

Chapter 3 Intellectual debates around the purge: responsibility, purity, patriotism

Chapter 4 The autumn of 1945

Chapter 5 Sartre's committed literature in theory and practice

Chapter 6 Rise and demise: a synthesis

Chapter 7 Explaining intellectuals: a proposal

Biblography

Index

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