Michael Norton explains why “Joe Versus the Volcano” is the perfect existentialist film.

Continuing our tradition of going to the movies for the first episode of teach new season, we watch the 1990 film Joe vs. The Volcano with Michael Norton from the University of Arkansas, Little Rock. Michael has an argument that the movie is the perfect existentialist film. Is he right?

In this episode, we discuss the following ideas/thinkers/texts/etc.:

• The podcast Black Mirror Reflections and the episode “San Junipero”
• Project 2025
• John Patrick Stanley’s other films, Moonstruck and Doubt
• Roger Ebert’s review of Joe vs. The Volcano
• The Coen Brothers’ film, The Big Lebowski
• The Terry Gilliam film Brazil
• Don Delillo, White Noise
• The “headhunters” from the TV series Gilligan’s Island
• Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus 
• Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
• Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground
• Simone DeBeauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity and Pyrrhus and Cineas

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