Jackson Pollock, “Stenographic Figure,” c. 1942
Dear humans of the cosmos: If you are reading along, you are welcome to join us for our second session discussing Susanne K. Langer’s Philosophy in a New Key.
In your time zone: 2021-11-18T19:00:00Z → 2021-11-18T21:00:00Z
Video conference: Launch Meeting - Zoom
This week we’ll be improvising with chapters 4-6 and @madrush will be leading off the logical jam.
If you missed the first session, you can catch up here:
Reading / Watching / Listening
- Susanne Langer - Philosophy in a New Key
- Chapter 4: Discursive Forms and Presentational Forms
- Chapter 5: Language
- Chapter 6: Life-Symbols: The Roots of Sacrament
Reading Schedule
- Nov 04: Chs, I, II, III
- Nov 18: Chs IV, V, VI ←
- Dec 02: Chs VII, VIII
- Dec 16: Chs IX, X
Seed Questions
Lock downs are happening in New York City. Everyone has to have an ID with their vaccination status to get into a movie, cafe or a museum. Austria has made this requirement a national mandate, banning a third of its population from participating in any cultural event. With that as background knowledge, how do you make sense of Langer’s project?
And when does a species turn into another species?
And when does a free person become a commodity?
And when does a meadow turn into a desert?
And when does mouth-feelings become speech?
And what does the New Key unlock?
And as we are reading Langer, a German-American white lady, who studied cultural artifacts of another era, and who wrote during the onset of the Cold War, what difference does reading her make? What are the lenses through which she can be read durng the Pandemic of 2021?
Context, Backstory, and Related topics
- @achronon’s “introductory, bare-bones overview of the reading for the previous session (as presented in the online session itself)”: 20211104_CCafe-PNK1_Intro.pdf