Existential Despair - by Justin McDaniel (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A provocative and transformative tour through literature as an insight into despair and how to understand it, and why the practice of reading is needed more than ever--based on the wildly popular UPenn course Existential Despair.

Imagine a class that meets for eight hours once a week. There are no devices, just one book to read in silence and discuss with the group at the end. No prep. No papers. No final exams. Just read a book and think about it.

That's exactly what University of Pennsylvania professor Justin McDaniel--former Buddhist monk and Guggenheim Fellow--asks of his students in Existential Despair, which perhaps ironically became the most popular course on campus. Drawing on this celebrated class, McDaniel now guides readers through sixteen weeks of radical reading designed to unsettle, transform, and restore.

With bracing candor and erudite analysis, Existential Despair introduces readers to modern classics of literature by James Baldwin, Carmen Maria Machado, Yukio Mishima, Ottessa Moshfegh, Paul Bowles, and others, exploring universal themes including childhood, longing, sex, loneliness, and death. Each chapter models McDaniel's unconventional approach: reading entire novels in one sitting, grappling with discomfort, and practicing deep concentration free of distraction. This book is not a self-help manual, nor a path to quick fixes. Instead, it offers readers an opportunity to experience what hundreds of students already have: literature as a way to wrestle with grief, meaning, and survival.

As McDaniel writes, "This is not about hope or triumph--it's about learning to live alongside despair."

Existential Despair is an immersive reading experience that cultivates rigorous intellectual and personal engagement, a crash course in living with focus, intention, and presence of mind.

About the Author

Justin McDaniel is the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned his PhD in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard University. He has published five books in his field, edited ten more, published over 100 articles and reviews, and won several awards for writing. He has been a Fulbright, Mellon, Rockefeller, and Guggenheim Fellow. He was named one of the top ten most innovative professors in America by the Chronicle of Higher Education and one of the hundred top cultural influencers by Cultured Magazine in 2026. He has won teaching and advising awards at Harvard University, Ohio University, the University of California, and the Ludwig Prize for Teaching at Penn. His work on pedagogical methods in the courses Existential Despair and Living Deliberately have been featured on NPR, Huffington Post, Washington Post, the New York Times and many other venues. He lives in Philadelphia.