[DGB, writing the first discussion post…]
Just a few notes to get our thread launched. We gathered for the first time on Wednesday the 7th, and though there was a sense that the class was organizational (mostly), and that we might not use the whole period, the truth was we sort of ran out of time! (In that, I realized after we dispersed, that I had failed to talk about the tradition of the “weekly object” — which, to get us launched, I will bring to our next session…more on that TK).
But I take that as a very good sign for our semester together, that we immediately got rolling, and found ourselves, without even having done any shared reading, already thickening a conversation about the humanities, the arts, the sciences, “professional trajectories,” and many of the other themes to which we will return over the next twelve weeks. We also, of course, did quite a bit of “nuts and bolts” on the way 583 works, the ways that it is a little different from a lot of other seminars, and I dished a little on the “lore” of past cycles, genealogies, hoary wisdoms, blah blah blah.
In all seriousness, though, one of the moments I hope we can hold on to as we launch was that little excursus into the pandemic, and its immense costs to so many over these last years — and the shared recognition (I felt) that we all wanted to try to be a little extra “careful” with each other, trying to keep in mind that a lot of folks (everyone?) is maybe just a little closer to their edges after the strain and isolation and disruptions since March of 2020. So I am committed on this, and I hope you all are too.
That said, there was also a valuable turn through the respective virtues of “affirmation and positivity” (the saying of yes) as against “critical resistance” (refusal, negation…the saying of no). To this I am sure we will return, since it informs so much. I suggested it is key to be wary of the saying of “no” merely out of fear/anxiety/unfamiliarity. And I further tried to slip in there a little plea for the special power of refusing to use what one thinks one knows to fuel disdain or an inadequately examined sense of mastery/ownership. Here we tip open the value of a very particular kind of “negativity”: negative capability, in the Keats sense. Key, that.
But we have time for all these questions. And time, too, to think about our forms and modes of potential collaboration. A good deal of our conversation circled that imminence, and it felt right to come right out of the blocks with various suggestions and examples on all that. Very much looking forward to our term together!
-DGB
