The Metamodern Academy: An Updated Masterclass in Metamodernism

Chaos is a ladder.

Do you have the courage to climb it?

If you want to make sense of our turbulent times, and if you seek to monetize the madness, this course might be for you. If you’re smart enough.

This masterclass is the ultimate metamodern experience, possibly in the entire universe. It’s the culmination of more than a decade and a half worth of groundbreaking theory and action in which your honorable (but slightly indecent) host and teacher Emil Ejner Friis will deliver an overwhelming cascade of fact and fiction—in the most dazzling manner imaginable. No AI-slop, all too human, guaranteed.

Metamodernism is the overarching sense-making map that bridges the rational optimism of modernism with the critical perspectives of postmodernism and the nourishing enchantment of the premodern. In a world of empirical pessimism, a solid dose of theoretical optimism, delivered with an astounding sense of sincere irony, might just be what you need to make it to the next stage. Or at least make you a more captivating human being at any dinner conversation.

This course features both completely new material and tried-and-tested fan favourites; from the Hanzi Freinacht books as well as unpublished writings. Some of the content is updated and refined versions of what has previously been developed in collaboration with Daniel Görtz (for the previous Advanced Masterclass), and Robert Kelley Ayala (The Simple 30-Step Leadership Program). All of this has received widespread acclaim over the years and we look forward to presenting all the new theories and ideas that have been developed in the meantime.

Since the course contains material that former students might already be familiar with, those who’ve participated in our previous courses are eligible for a whopping 50% discount. If you send an email to emil@metamoderna.org we’ll send you a discount code. You’re also eligible for a 50% discount if you get a friend to join with you. But only if they behave.

HOW IT WORKS

The course runs for two hours every Sunday, beginning November 29th at 6pm GMT (1pm Eastern, 10am Pacific, 19:00 Central European, 23:30 India), and ending February 21st with an uninhibited amount of confetti and fireworks. If you miss the live sessions, you can always watch the recordings. And to those who’re interested, there will be hang-out sessions at the end of each class.

It is recommended that you are somewhat familiar with metamodernism beforehand (for instance, having read Hanzi Freinacht’s books or participated in the Introduction Course which will take place the previous four Sundays of November 2026) and that you commit significant time, concentration, and effort in order to benefit from the course.

The course includes new and hitherto unpublished content—and includes thorough sneak-peeks on coming Hanzi books. The course material (articles, etc.) for each session is sent out weekly.

Additionally, the masterclass offers great opportunities for networking and co-creating projects with the other participants.

PROGRAM:

We will start where the Introduction Course ended.

Week 1: The state of contemporary metamodernism and where we’re going (or not going)

• Why integral and political metamodernism failed so spectacularly
• What’s the deal with all those meta-nazis and neo-regressives?
• What are the political pressure points for real change in today’s world?

Week 2: An Introduction to The 6 Hidden Patterns

• Everything you need to know about the “metamemes” and their intricate relation to psychological, societal, and organizational development
• Why these metameme patterns have stayed “hidden” for so long
• Why art always comes first (and why ethics, sadly, always comes last)

Week 3: An Introduction to The 30 Steps of Transformative Leadership

• Why stage theories are unusable: They’re too true to be good!
• How psychological, societal, and organizational development all follow the same patterns of growth and stagnation
• How you can use the hidden patterns to transform your organization and unlock new paths of development and growth

Week 4: The Animist Metameme and the Wonder Frequency

• How raindance conquered the world
• How animism gave humanity a competitive edge that wiped out the Neanderthals and the Woolly Mammoth (and how you can get some of dat edge, too)
• How to reintegrate the Indigenous in a healthy, non-colonial way

Week 5: The Faustian Metameme and the Power Frequency

• The importance of listening to Heavy Metal
• The subtle joy of praising Satan in daily life
• How to avoid Balder’s trap

Week 6: The Postfaustian Metameme and the Oneness Frequency

• How the Roman Empire collapsed while the Roman Church survived (and what that can teach us about our current civilization)
• Why the Axial Age thesis is the missing piece to the puzzle that makes Spiral Dynamics obsolete (and thereby makes you less of a freak in academia)
• Why integralists keep falling back into this frequency (and why that makes them impotent and largely irrelevant in today’s world)

Week 7: The Modern Metameme and the Reason Frequency

• How memes, all the world’s best memes, enabled the rise of the west (and why being a white hardworking protestant had nothing to do with it)
• Why it’s inevitable that modern society collapses (any why it’s probably for the better)
• Are squares actually happy?

Week 8: The Postmodern Metameme and the Critique Frequency

• DON’T SKIP THIS STAGE! (trust me, it’s worse than skipping leg day)
• Why you need more good pomo, and why that makes you more metamodern
• Why postmodernism is the last actual stage of development

Week 9: The Metamodern Metameme and the Integration Frequency

• From the Enlightenment to The Enshittenment
• Bad news: The Listening Society has been cancelled
• Good news: The Meaning Crisis has also been cancelled

Week 10: Outcompeting Capitalism and the New Class Analysis

• The impending triumph of cultural capital (and why artists are so crucial for a metamodern transition)
• Why you’ll need to watch more films and go to more art museums and concerts to beat capitalism
• Test: Will you be a winner or loser in the post-capitalist economy of the future?

Week 11: The End of History and the Last Stage

• Why metamodernism isn’t really a stage, but the cultural equivalent of the singularity
• However, first we need to go through a Postmodern Dark Age
• And why all of this is going to be much more fun than it sounds

Week 12: Where the Attractors are Pulling Us

• A brief introduction to Attractors and how they can help you predict the future
• How to stay sane in a world on the brink of madness
• Kill your guru, find your meta-team, and all the tea in London will be yours

PRICING:

• Standard: €500
• Student or unemployed: €250
• Global South: €125
• Marriage Proposals: FREE
• Mecenat: €600 (+€100 donation)

YOUR FACILITATOR:

Emil Ejner Friis (b. 1981) is a historian and futurist, a theory artist and a teacher of metamodernism. He is also a co-founder of Metamodernaand one of the writers behind Hanzi Freinacht. He has spent the past fifteen years trying to figure out how to create a listening society, a kinder and more evolved society that deeply cares for the happiness and emotional needs of every citizen.

He has tried and failed at creating a metamodern political party, he has tried and failed at leading an army of children to revolt against the untold indignities of everyday life in late-stage capitalism, and he has just plainly failed at ever getting a normal bourgeois life by being drawn to all kinds of adventures to try and save the world from itself.

He just moved to a remote tropical island where he spends his days swimming with dolphins and hanging out with bohemian artists, drinking wine and fiercely arguing about poetry, gazing at the sunset while weeping in the face of tragedy and bliss.

When he’s not writing and theorizing, he’s conspiring with other metamodernly inclined hackers, hipsters, and hippies to outcompete modern society. He lives at the crossroads of fact and fiction, and to pay the rent he sells words, all the best words.

Emil is a skilled and experienced speaker with a reputation of being entertaining and good at making complex ideas easier to digest.