In The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker examines the import that the works of the 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard have on modern psychology. Calling Kierkegaard a psychoanalyst, he argues that the philosopher of religion saw deeper into the human psyche than most analysts today.

Participants in this 4-month Psychological Humanities and Ethics workshop, led by Professor Matthew Clemente, will meet from 7:00 to 8:30 PM EST on the third Monday of each month from September to December to examine the insights and ideas of one of history’s most formative psychologists. The workshop will entail reading Kierkegaard not as a philosopher in the classical sense but as a proto-psychotherapist, a precursor to Freud, Becker, Girard, and Lacan. Participants will trace the early understandings of such fundamental psychological concepts as anxiety, despair, and repetition to the works of Kierkegaard and will explore the concepts of absurdity, faith, mimesis, ethics, and desire. By the end of this course, participants will have an in-depth knowledge of the major works and ideas of one of modernity’s most prominent and influential thinkers.