Midpoint

We are almost halfway through the summer! Things are going well. I would like to acknowledge everyone who has shown interest in this reading group, but has been unable to attend any meetings. If you would still like to join in, perhaps later in the season, please feel free. If the time or date of a meeting doesn't work, let us know! We want to have as many perspectives as possible! And if you don't like what the group is reading, read something else and talk to us about it! We're all kinda geeky like that.

So the meeting to discuss Dostoyevsky's Underground Man/Notes From the Underground will take place tomorrow, Monday the 22nd at my house (in Kensington), 7pm as usual. Please try to make it!

Progress

We've finished with Sartre, had a quick poetry lesson from Irving Layton, and now the group has elected to read Dostoyevsky's Underground Man. Next meeting we will be discussing the first half of the book at Laura's house.
Sunday June 21st @7pm

To keep us engaged:

I've been dipping into David Harvey's Condition of Post-Modernity. It has given me a greater understanding of the recent sea change in western critical and cultural thought. It is a very broad analysis, and maybe even too sweeping, but to approach the wide-ranging topics with any more depth would require multiple authors. I would recommend the first three chapters to anyone in the arts, humanities, sciences or illegal drug trades.

What else is everyone reading?

'Book'list

Here is the list of everything we wanted to read, followed by the ones we chose.

The Cantos - Ezra Pound
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith
The Divine Comedy - Dante
something by Isaac Newton
something by John Keynes
the Biography of James Joyce
Girl Blog From Iraq
The Day The Leader Was Killed - Naguib Mahfouz
The Development of Underdevelopment - André Gunder Frank
Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre
The Condition of Post-Modernity - David Harvey
Analysis of medium-length computer program
Without Hot Air - David MacKay
The Omnivore's Dilemma - Michael Pollan
Gödel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hofstadter
The Underground Man - Fyodor Dovstoyevsky
something by Proust
something by Irving Layton
A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf
Aeneid - Virgil

WHAT WE WILL READ:
Principia Mathematica - Isaac Newton (excerpts)
Cantos - Ezra Pound
The Underground Man - Fyodor Dovstoyevsky
À la recherche du temps perdu - Marcel Proust
A selection of Irving Layton's work
Gödel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hofstadter
The Condition of Post-Modernity - David Harvey La Nausée - Jean-Paul Sartre


We have begun La Nausée. (most of us are reading in translation, but the truly ambitious among us are reading the original French!) Our next meeting will finish up with this existentialist dog fart and we'll decide from there what to read next. If anyone needs details about next week's meeting on June 6th, please get in touch!

First Book, Second Meeting

Last night was fun. I can sense a lot of excitement about our project. Let's dive right in!

The next meeting will be at 7pm on Sunday May 31st at Patrick's house: 602 15th St. NW.

We have decided to start by reading the first 100 (or so) pages of Jean-Paul Satre's "Nausea". If you have difficulty finding a copy of the book, send a message to the group. Someone will gladly help you out!

Please be ready to discuss the text and ask a few 'why' questions.


And don't forget to spend five minutes on Doodle to vote for the best days to meet. August polls will be up later this month.

Check back soon for the booklist, including the titles that didn't make it to our top eight!

When are you available?

Please input!

Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10

Introductory meeting

This blog will be the online resource for Volumes summer reading group 2009. Readings, notes and announcements will be posted here. Anyone from the group may post.

The first get-together will be on Friday May 22nd at 6pm.
Please email me at LdotBOYDdotCLOWESatGMAILdotCOM for the address.

In the meantime, let's figure out which books or essays we would like to read. Consider especially difficult texts that would benefit from a workshop treatment - remember, if there is something you don't understand, there will likely be someone in the group who does. That is the beauty of cooperative study! Be ambitious!

This will be the time to determine a schedule, meet each other and discuss our expectations for the summer. Please come with book suggestions, wine and/or food!

Be there!