Stage 1: Foundations of Existential Thought

• Plato — Euthyphro (optional)
• Plato — Phaedo (optional)
• Blaise Pascal — Pensées (selections on faith and reason)
• Søren Kierkegaard — Fear and Trembling (already reading)

Stage 2: Becoming a Self

• Søren Kierkegaard — The Sickness Unto Death
• Simone Weil — Gravity and Grace

Stage 3: Faith, Doubt, and the Modern Soul

• Albert Camus — The Myth of Sisyphus (reread)
• Paul Tillich — The Courage to Be
• Julian Barnes — Nothing to Be Frightened Of

Stage 4: Return to Kierkegaard and Modern Echoes

• Søren Kierkegaard — Works of Love
• Zadie Smith — Feel Free (essay: “On Optimism and Despair”)

Optional Bonus Reads

• Flannery O’Connor — Mystery and Manners
• Marilynne Robinson — Gilead
• Fyodor Dostoevsky — The Brothers Karamazov