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Five Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Wednesdays, July 15 - August 12, 2026
7:00 - 8:30pm ET (NYC Time)
$140 Paid Patreon Members/ $160 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
The question of being has haunted philosophy from its inception. In this course we will explore some of the biggest and most enduring human questions: what it means to exist, how we face death, how we imagine possibility, and how we understand ourselves and our relationships to others. Throughout, we’ll engage with the work of Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir, alongside selected literary texts that bring these ideas to life.
We’ll begin with Kierkegaard, closely reading excerpts fromThe Sickness Unto Deathto explore his ideas about the self and despair, and then connecting these to his reflections on faith and sacrifice inFear and Trembling. These themes will ground our work for the rest of the course.
In the second week, we’ll turn to Heidegger’sBeing and Time, focusing on concepts such as being-toward-death, dasein, facticity, thrownness, and the ontological difference. We’ll also touch on how Heidegger’s thinking connects back to the pre-Socratic philosophers.
From there, we’ll move into Sartre’sBeing and Nothingness, beginning with “The Origin of Nothingness,” to deepen our engagement with existential philosophy. Finally, we’ll broaden our scope through the work of Simone de Beauvoir, as well as writers such as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Albert Camus, Franz Kafka, Emmy Hennings, and others.
While the course will explore complex philosophical ideas, no prior background in philosophy is required. We do recommend, however, a keen interest in the ideas and literature, and an open minded curiosity is required. A reader in pdf format will be provided with all of the readings covered in the course.
Hannes Charen is a writer, professor, photographer, publisher and existential therapist. He is currently teaching at Pratt Institute where he teaches classes such as Weimar Film and Culture, Death and Dying, Existentialism, Philosophy through Film, Aesthetics and Varieties of Religious Experience: Myths, Magic, Mysticism and European Philosophy. He is based in New York City.
Images: Alberto Giacometti, Portrait, ca. 1959
Five Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Wednesdays, July 15 - August 12, 2026
7:00 - 8:30pm ET (NYC Time)
$140 Paid Patreon Members/ $160 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
The question of being has haunted philosophy from its inception. In this course we will explore some of the biggest and most enduring human questions: what it means to exist, how we face death, how we imagine possibility, and how we understand ourselves and our relationships to others. Throughout, we’ll engage with the work of Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir, alongside selected literary texts that bring these ideas to life.
We’ll begin with Kierkegaard, closely reading excerpts fromThe Sickness Unto Deathto explore his ideas about the self and despair, and then connecting these to his reflections on faith and sacrifice inFear and Trembling. These themes will ground our work for the rest of the course.
In the second week, we’ll turn to Heidegger’sBeing and Time, focusing on concepts such as being-toward-death, dasein, facticity, thrownness, and the ontological difference. We’ll also touch on how Heidegger’s thinking connects back to the pre-Socratic philosophers.
From there, we’ll move into Sartre’sBeing and Nothingness, beginning with “The Origin of Nothingness,” to deepen our engagement with existential philosophy. Finally, we’ll broaden our scope through the work of Simone de Beauvoir, as well as writers such as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Albert Camus, Franz Kafka, Emmy Hennings, and others.
While the course will explore complex philosophical ideas, no prior background in philosophy is required. We do recommend, however, a keen interest in the ideas and literature, and an open minded curiosity is required. A reader in pdf format will be provided with all of the readings covered in the course.
Hannes Charen is a writer, professor, photographer, publisher and existential therapist. He is currently teaching at Pratt Institute where he teaches classes such as Weimar Film and Culture, Death and Dying, Existentialism, Philosophy through Film, Aesthetics and Varieties of Religious Experience: Myths, Magic, Mysticism and European Philosophy. He is based in New York City.
Images: Alberto Giacometti, Portrait, ca. 1959