# John Kaag Visiting Professor on Nineteenth-Century American Transcendentalism ![John Kaag headshot](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_4_5__320x400/public/2026-08/John_Kaag.jpg?itok=usfHcE9y) email ## 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](https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/research-programming/transcendentalism) 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 View [HDS courses taught by John Kaag](https://my.harvard.edu/instructor/6681019972407220589?q=&school=HDS&term=All&sort=relevance&page=1) in my.Harvard. All Harvard courses - ## Affiliation [Faculty](/affiliation/faculty) - ## Alpha Grouping [K-O](/alpha-grouping/k-o) - ## Faculty Type [Visiting Faculty](/faculty-type/visiting-faculty)