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You Don’t Have to
No, seriously. Ignore all your commitments, as long as you can face the consequences
A few months ago, I signed up for a seminar on existentialist philosophy. Because the existentialists were part of the reason I’d decided to study philosophy in the first place, I was thrilled to delve into the material. The great philosophers of the 20th century were awaiting me: Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and many more. I felt ready, getting a little more excited by each day the seminar drew closer.
Yet, unexpectedly, all this changed when I received a strange email.
The email was sent by the responsible professor and consisted of three neatly aligned, perfectly spaced-out paragraphs. First, the professor greeted us in Latin. Second, they told us that they were looking forward to discussing the existentialists with us. So far, so good. It was the third paragraph that got me. In it, the professor listed the required readings, describing how they’d like us to work with the material. It would be indispensable and obligatory, they said, to “fully dissect” these texts and study them with the “utmost scrutiny.”
The required readings totaled 2,000 pages.
I closed the email as I watched my excitement about existentialist philosophy roll downhill faster…
