Benjamin on/and Kafka next time! We’ll discuss Kafka’s “The Judgment” (pp. 78-86) alongside Walter Benjamin‘s essay “Franz Kafka: On the Tenth Anniversary of His Death” (pp. 111-140). Around 37 pages of reading this week, so try and give yourself enough time for all of it, and if you find yourself short, perhaps read the Benjamin and some of the very short stories instead. “

Two pieces in conversation this week: Walter Benjamin’s “The Task of the Translator” (pp. 69-82) dialogues with Novalis’ “Miscellaneous Observations” (aka “Pollen”) (pp. 23-46). Hope you’ll join us for the collision.

More by Walter Benjamin this Tuesday. From One-Way Street and Other Writings, we will discuss “To the Planetarium” (pp. 103), “On Language as Such and on the Language of Man” (pp. 107), and “Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia” (pp. 225). Can’t wait to go over these with you — until then!

Next week we’ll take a crack at Walter Benjamin’s “Epistemo-Critical Prologue” to The Origin of German Tragic Drama. It runs from pp. 27-56. Enjoy, and stay fierce.

This week we’ll discuss the first two chapters of W.E.B. Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction (“The Black Worker” and “The White Worker”). See you there.

A last taste of Dionysian glories next week, as we conclude The Birth of Tragedy and select a new direction hence. Section 20 through the conclusion are up for consideration. Anon, anon…

“A coterie of perennial nuisances persists, despite pleadings from the local citizenry, in discussing Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy. ‘Insularity has its virtue,’ one remarked.”

Sections 13-19 next time!

Pushing forward with The Birth of Tragedy, this week reading sections 6-12. See you soon!

Join us next week as we start Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy. We’ll read the preface and sections 1-5. Hope to see you there.

On Tuesday we will conclude our reading of Georges Bataille’s On Nietzsche by discussing the last two sections of the Diary. In the interest of not splitting sections in twain or spending an entire week on the “Epilogue”, this week’s reading will be a bit longer than the previous ones. Accordingly, please give yourself enough time to read about 40 pp. of this dense work.

Our reading begins at pp. 121 with “The Times (June-July 1944)” and ends on pp. 162 at the conclusion of “Epilogue (August 1944)”. Several appendices and the Memorandum remain for those who wish to continue engaging with this captivating text, but our collective journey through & with it ends this week.