Talks and seminars on Classical thought coming soon - please sign up or check back for details.
The talks and seminars will centre on the tragedians and on Plato’s dialogues. The aim of the former will be to come to some understanding of Greek ethical thought in the late Pre-Socratic period - by way of their plays rather than their philosophy. The latter will attempt to elucidate Plato’s overall philosophical position, focusing on key notions such as knowledge, Truth, Beauty, and the Good.
Soliloquies.
One often encounters texts that discourse on the nature of things through the lens of existential experience. These authors express themselves from a position of relative solitude yet ‘talk aloud’ in that they make a record of their thoughts. The soliloquies series is dedicated to this mode of expression, this deeply personal manner of giving an account of the real. The essay form as conceived by Montaigne, works like Pascal’s Pensées, and Gracián’s The Art of Worldly Wisdom - these are typical of the soliloquy style. Many literary works fall within this genre, often those of a mystical or poetic nature. Each session opens an extended, informal discussion on a particular figure or a particular text.
The Book of Job.
‘[I]t is but a breath, this life of mine, and I shall look on this fair world but once; when that is done, men will see me no more, and thou as nothing. Like a cloud dislimned in passing, man goes to his grave never to return; never again the home-coming, never shall tidings of him reach the haunts he knew.’ 7:7-11.
Coming soon.
The poetics of Emily Dickinson.
‘The Test of Love - is Death - Our Lord - “so loved” - it saith - What Largest Lover -hath - Another - doth - If smaller Patience - be - Through less Infinity - If Bravo, sometimes swerve - Through fainter Nerve - Accept its Most - And overlook - the Dust - Last - Least - The Cross’ - Request -’ 573, Collected Poems.
Coming soon.
Pascal’s Pensées.
‘[W]e anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming […] or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight […] we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is.’ 47, Pensées.
Coming soon.