This seminar is for hermits, recluses, and solitaries of every stripe. We will draw on perspectives from philosophies east and west, the history of religions, as well as literature, film, and other media. Examples will range from the religious ascetics of antiquity to technologized forms of reclusion, from the desert monastics of ancient Egypt to the Parisian prowlers of fin-de-siècle Paris, from the mountains-and-rivers (shanshui) poets of ancient China to the self-abnegation of Medieval mystics – from hermits to hikikomori. The aim will be to comprehend how solitude is deeply intertwined with the sense of being a part of the world and at the same time being apart from the world.