Abstract

VERTTY VELASCO, Yael David. From Existentialism to Poststructuralism: New Directions to Think about French Post-war Intellectual History (1945-1968). Hist. graf [online]. 2023, n.60, pp.265-300.  Epub Feb 13, 2023. ISSN 1405-0927.  https://doi.org/10.48102/hyg.vi60.448.

The present paper reviews some methodological transformations within the new intellectual history and how these have been applied to the study of French postwar cultural-philosophical currents. Based on new perspectives that inform recent literature about this topic, the present article develops a proposal to understand the transition from existentialism to poststructuralism which derives from tracking the trajectory of two intellectual debates: the quarrels around phenomenology and humanism that took place on France between 1945 and 1968. This essay not only contributes to the attempt of rethinking French intellectual life and its leading movements throughout this period, but it also uses this case to illustrate the evolution of a long historiographical debate and certain general changes within intellectual history as a discipline.

Keywords : Intellectual History; Intellectual Movements; Twentieth-Century French Thought; Existentialism; Structuralism; Poststructuralism; Intellectuals; French Cultural Life.