The Homelessness of Being: Heidegger and the Meaning of Existence

The Homelessness of Being invites readers to consider what it means to be human. This dialogue between sociology and the influential early and middle phases of Martin Heidegger's writings argues that to be human is to be homeless. This homelessness is not one of materiality, of being houseless, but one that is ontological: the homelessness that constitutes the essence of humanity, where one is distanced and separated from the essence of one's self or being. Prashan Ranasinghe theorizes this homelessness as an indeterminate-nothingness, where the notion of being is unsettled because it is an amalgam of something and nothing. It is a state and process that is always unfinished: to be human is to so be. More broadly, the book adds to existing debates about whether--especially after the global pandemic--the social sciences have failed to explore everyday affects such as anxiety and boredom as revelatory of the essential homelessness of human being. It will interest philosophers, sociologists, and scholars engaging with Heidegger's ideas.