Reading for 2/11

So first off, we decided not to attend the D&G reading group happening next Tuesday, and will meet at The Long Haul at 7, as per usual. If anyone feels like going and bringing us a reportback in two weeks, maybe we’ll consider the idea again next month.

In case you’re new to the study group, or just haven’t attended in a while, just a reminder that we’re now meeting every Tuesday from 7-9, NOT 8-10 as we used to. Apologies that we didn’t fix the website to reflect this sooner!

Ok! Next week’s reading is from David Graeber’s The Utopia of Rules. We’re doing chapter two, “Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit”, which begins on pg. 62 of the pdf linked HERE.

And welcome to our two new participants!

Reading for 2/4

Alfredo M. Bonanno‘s The Young in Post Industrial Society is next week’s reading! Looks pretty rad!

In two weeks, 2/11, we’re considering attending the monthly meeting of a reading group studying Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus that Tuesday night from 6:30-8:30 at Pro Arts Gallery in downtown Oakland. We haven’t fully decided whether or not to go as a group, but if we do we will likely leave from the Long Haul at 5:45 or so. If you’re not a part of our group chat or were planning on attending our study group for the first time in two weeks, shoot an email to birdsoffire@riseup.net letting us know if you’re down to join us!

This text is notoriously ‘difficult’, so those who want to spend an extra week with it can find the full book linked here. The reading for this month is the chapter titled “Year Zero: Faciality”. Dig it, or not.

Reading for 1/28

We didn’t decide on a piece last night, so I’m going to seize the opportunity to do some more readings about Artaud. Next week, let’s look at two pieces from this collection of critical writings about the man: “The theatre of cruelty and the closure of representation” (p. 39) and “To unsense the subjectile” (p. 125), both by Jacques Derrida. Don’t worry, they’re less than 20 pages altogether.

See you then!

Reading for 12/10

Thanks to everyone who came out on Saturday and made this year’s BASTARD Conference such a success. Some of the best conversations I’ve seen go down at an event like this, and all the presentations were top-notch (as well as bizarrely attuned to each other). Hoping to do another one in four short months to coincide with the book fair, so we should probably start putting that together come the new decade…

So I actually have an excuse for being negligent in my posting duties this week, but since we’re late and have to go over this weekend’s proceedings tomorrow, let’s just do this exceedingly short David Foster Wallace story to give us something to talk about if we need it. It should only take a few minutes to get through and it comes suggested by one of our friends from out of town, so dig it.

I’ll be gone for a few weeks after tomorrow, so have pleasant conclusions to your Gregorian calendars and remember to “remain impossible as long as the possible is possible.”

Reading for 12/3

Sorry for the very late post this week. Tomorrow we’re discussing Alejandro’s piece “Two Styles of Anti-Statist Subjectivity”, which is short but worthwhile. Don’t forget we start at 7pm now!

And also remember that this Saturday, December 7th is the 2019 BASTARD Conference, to be held from 3-9pm at The Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave in Berkeley. Presenting this year are Wolfi Landstreicher (Apio Ludd), Jason McQuinn, and a bunch of other members and friends of the Study Group. If you have more questions visit https://facebook.com/events/s/bastard-conference-2019/1540679269422609/?ti=icl or email birdsoffire@riseup.net

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