At the London Literary Salon we offer a special blend of great literature, great ideas and great conversation. We also know that our weekly studies are sometimes hard to fit in among the demands of everyday life. If you’re looking to add more meaningful conversation into your life, without another 100 pages a week to read—our Spontaneous Philosophy Study has the answer!
Each month we meet—with no prep necessary—for an on-the-spot close reading of a short passage from the great authors that we read elsewhere in the Salon. We might also call this Short Works, Big Ideas. We read concise and provocative passages from the likes of Plato, Kant, Marx, Mill, Dewey, James, Confucius, Kafka and lots more.
To add to the fun, the author and reading each month will be a surprise: everyone will be seeing the text for the first time, with all the excitement of encountering the ideas fresh together. Together we work our way through one to four pages each time, mostly from the giants of philosophy, but with the occasional short story, poem, or even a fairy tale tossed in—you won’t know until you show up. The emphasis is on close reading and a shared inquiry to build understand of new ideas.
Meetings are on the third or fourth Tuesday of the month, 6:00pm to 8:30pm, at the lovely Rudolf Steiner House just below Regent’s Park.
Registration is £15, which covers our room charge and a bit for the facilitator. After you RSVP, all you’ll need to do is show up and be ready to think! Seats are limited, so be sure to RSVP by registering via Paypal below. If you prefer, you can send an email to facilitator Mark Cwik, as well.
Spontaneous Philosophy is a low-advance-commitment way to practice some intellectual self-care, with a bit of hard thinking and a lot of good discussion.
SALON DETAILS
- Facilitated by Mark Cwik
- Tuesday evenings
- Ongoing monthly study
- Meetings in Rudolf Steiner House, Marylebone — 35 Park Road, London, NW1 6XT
If you would like to request this study or have any questions about it, please contact us.
“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”
The legend of the Trojan War is one of the most enduring stories in our culture, inspiring some of our most creative and moving literature and art—from Homer to Shakespeare to Joyce and the present day. The famous Golden Apple and the Trojan Horse are familiar to most everyone, along with the names of Achilles, Odysseus, Hector and Aeneas—and, of course, the ever-enigmatic Helen at the centre of it all.
Socrates was described as poor and ugly, called a “numbfish,” compared to a 
“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.”
“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
Jane Austen needs no introduction or explanation. She’s a writer unmatched in her ability to parse the workings of the human psyche and the nuances of social interactions. And her novels are simply delightful. In this four-week study we’ll read two of her best: Persuasion and Emma.