2024 Dr. Simon Lea's Address to The Albert Camus Society 2024 London "Revelation and the Absurd in Camus' First Cycle of Works."

Here is a fantastic episode by one of the world's leading Camus scholars, Dr. Simon Lea.

The entire paper will be available in The Journal of Camus Studies.

Below is the abstract of the paper:

Albert Camus planned his works in cycles. Each were to contain an essay, a novel and plays. The first cycle wasconcerned with the absurd and the second with rebellion. Camus' life was tragically cut short in a motor accident before he could complete the third cycle. Between the second and third cycles, after the furore resulting from his publication of The Rebel, Camus wrote several texts that are not includedin his cyclical works. This paper is concerned with Camus' first cycle on the absurd and the following texts: The Myth of Sisyphus, The Stranger, Caligula and The Misunderstanding. In particular, I am interested in the role played by revelation in the communication of the absurd in these works. In this paper, I use the term 'revelation' in reference tomaking known something relating to the human condition via a process that is difficult or even impossible to understand. My argument is that Camus, drawing upon Nietzschean influences, is seeking in his first cycle to induce revelatoryexperiences in his readers in order to communicate ideas concerning the absurd.

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