Reading Group

Directed by Prof. Ohad Nachtomy, Prof. David Heyd, and Dr. Dustin Lazarovici

Starting at 13.4.26

Mondays 16:00-17:30

Location: Dept. of Humanities and Arts

Following the successful Winter semester, in this semester we will continue to explore short literary texts by authors such as Kafka, Borges, L. Carrol, T. Mann, alongside philosophical texts. Participants will also be invited to present texts of their own choosing. The tentative plan for the semester is here.

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Registration for all Click here

Registration for Academic Credit:
Students who wish to take this reading group for credit can do so. If you are interested in this option, please write to Prof. Ohad Nachtomy or Dr. Dustin Lazarovici and explain your interest and motivation. Assessment of students who take this for credit will be based mainly on an oral presentation and a written paper on the reading material.

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Reading Plan

I      Myth, Poem, and Philosophy in some Ancient Sources

Meeting 1: Selections from Plato’s Symposium

Meeting 2: Selections from Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura

These meetings will be led by Dr. Enrico Piergiacomi

 II    Short Texts by Franz Kafka

Meeting 3: The Question of Laws; Before the Law and Deridda’s analysis of it.

Meeting 4: On Parables; The Silence of the Sirens

 III  Texts by Borges

Meeting 5: Lottery in Babylon (to be presented by David Heyd)

Meeting 6: The Library in Babylon (to be presented by Ohad).

 IV   Texts by Lewis Carroll

Meeting 7: Lewis Carroll on Zeno’s Paradoxes and What the Tortoise Said to Achilles.

Meeting 8: Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland and some nonsense verses

V     Selections from Insurmountable Simplicities

Meeting 9: Self-Reference Self-Explained, Verbatim, by Varzi and Cassetti

 VI   Space and Time

Meeting 10: Escher on the Infinite and the nature of Space

Meeting 11: Selections from Borges, The Book of Sand

Meeting 12: Selections from Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

VII: Further Readings Dostoevsky: The Grand Inquisitor (from “The Brothers Karamazov”).

 VIII: Stories and Texts chosen and presented by participants