Dear Reader,
Welcome to Passages! Passages is a place to gather around philosophy, poetry, and novels to explore ideas and build community together. All are welcome.
Below you will find the syllabus for Fall 2026. Welcome to what I am tenderly calling our loneliness collective, as we continue our deep dive into the history, literature, philosophy, politics, psychology, poetry, music, and art of loneliness.
For those of you who are new here, classes meet on Sundays from 12:00pm to 1:30pm EST. The Writing Workshop meets on Sunday afternoons from 3:00pm - 5:30pm EST.
This September I am running a special course on Hannah Arendt: Loneliness, Isolation, and The Specter of Totalitarianism. This course is open to anyone who is a paying subscriber of Passages, anyone who makes a donation will help subsidize future courses. Is loneliness really the underlying condition of all totalitarian movements? You can find the course page and register here.
The theme for our fall 2026 syllabus is Loneliness, Gentleness, and Love.
This fall we will explore the many dimensions of loneliness, solitude, attention, intention, love, friendship, loss, and gentleness through philosophy, literature, and poetry. We begin on East Egg with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, meeting one of the loneliest men in American fiction. From there, Simone Weil will invite us into a philosophy of attention, intention, solitude, and love, before Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse turns our attention to the passage of time and the fragile shape of memory. We will spend an evening with Ralph Waldo Emerson reflecting on tenderness and the art of friendship, meditate on loss alongside God’s lonely man, Job, spend some time in the verse of Emily Dickinson, and close our fall semester with Anne Dufourmantelle’s The Power of Gentleness: Meditations on the Risk of Living.
Together, these works ask us to consider how we might attend more deeply to ourselves, to one another, to time, to suffering, to the world around us, and what it might mean to live together with greater tenderness and gentleness.
Enroll in each class individually or purchase a class pass for all four courses and three workshops and save 20%. Class passes do not include the writing workshop. There are two subsidized spots available in each writing workshop, write to me if you would like one. Early enrollment is open below. Writing Workshops are limited to 12 students.
All students will receive a welcome email one week before the beginning of class. All class recordings will be sent within 24 hours if you miss a class. Private Discussion board available for all enrolled students.
Good for all four classes and three workshops
10/11 - The Great Gatsby
10/18 - The Great Gatsby
10/25 - The Great Gatsby
11/1 - Gravity and Grace
11/8 - Gravity and Grace
11/15 - Gravity and Grace
11/22 - To The Lighthouse
11/29 - To The Lighthouse
12/6 - To The Lighthouse
12/13 - Power of Gentleness
12/20 - Power of Gentleness
Ralph Waldo Emerson on Friendship
Thursday October 29, 2026
5:00pm - 6:30pm EST
Job
Thursday November 19, 2026
5:00pm - 6:30pm EST
Loneliness in the Poems of Emily Dickinson
Thursday December 17, 2026
5:00pm - 6:30pm EST
Tuesdays, September 8 — October 6, 2026 - 3:00pm - 5:30pm EST
Sundays, October 11 - November 8, 2026 - 3:00pm - 5:30pm EST
Sundays, November 15 - December 13, 2026 - 3:00pm - 5:30pm EST
*All course fees are non-refundable. If you’re unable to attend a course you’ve registered for, please contact me, course fees can be applied as credit toward future Passages offerings.
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