Sunday notes

Dear Reader,

I don’t have a neat summary of 2024 for you. It’s been a wild year for me. I began it in Davos on the magic mountain and am ending it in Oakland, California. In between, I lived in Syracuse, Rome, Paris, Oxford, and spent a few weeks in Japan. Mostly, I almost finished a draft of my book on loneliness—alone, alone, alone. Delightful solitude, my ever-giving, joyful friend. I started sending out Sunday notes here and began a book club, which I’m looking forward to continuing into our quarter-century year with you.

Somewhere in there, I wrote an article on the ex-Communists for Commonweal and the rise of the New Right in America, an essay on existentialism for Aeon, and wrote my first piece of travel reportage for The American Scholar to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. I also published my second book, What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt.

When I wasn’t writing or editing, I taught courses for the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on: The Pre-Raphaelites: Art, Beauty, and Transgression, Hannah Arendt’s: The Origins of Totalitarianism, and introduction to Ralph Waldo Emerson: Philosophy and Solitude, Hannah Arendt’s: The Human Condition, a class on Dreams and Dreaming: Philosophy, Psychology, and the Unconscious, Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain, and Artistic Realism: From Representation to Revolution.

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Some other highlights included talking with Lyndsey Stonebridge about her new book, Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience, in London.

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I celebrated the 100th anniversary of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain at the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles with Paul Holdengräber:

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And I got to launch my new book at the Strand in New York City with Heather Clark:

I’m not sure what next year will bring. And for this moment between the years, I’m going to hold onto that.

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A Sunday poem for you:

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I don’t like to go out on New Year’s Eve.

I drink champagne and watch Casabalanca.

Do you have a ritual?

Until next year,

Wishing you joy and a midnight kiss,

Sam

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Winter Classes

• The Magic Mountain: I am looking forward to teaching a five-week course on Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain at the 92nd Street Y. Sunday afternoons (online) January 12th - February 9th.

  • Sign-up here.

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• Seduction: And I am very excited to be teaching a new class for the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research on Seduction: Philosophy, Aesthetics, Ethics from January 28th to February 18th (online).

  • Sign-up here.

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• Loneliness: In March, join me for a class on Loneliness.

  • Sign-up here.