John Kaag

Visiting Professor on Nineteenth-Century American Transcendentalism
John Kaag headshot
jkaag@hds.harvard.edu

Education

  • MA, Pennsylvania State University
  • PhD, University of Oregon

Profile

John Kaag is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell as well as an associate in the Transcendentalism Initiative of the Center of the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. His research and teaching focus on American philosophy, existentialism, and the history of ideas. He is the author of American Philosophy: A Love Story (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016), Hiking with Nietzsche (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018), and Sick Souls, Healthy Minds: How William James Can Save Your Life (Princeton University Press, 2020), and co-author of Henry at Work: Thoreau on Making a Living (Princeton University Press, 2023). In addition to his academic scholarship, his writing has appeared in venues such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Courses

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