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.
“Generous tears filled Gabriel’s eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.”
Every reader finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.
“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”
Every reader finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself. -Marcel Proust