About us
[Note: This group is looking for a new owner! In the meantime, join the Toronto Philosophy Meetup to find many more online philosophy events and activities: https://www.meetup.com/the-toronto-philosophy-meetup/
The description below is from the previous organizer of the group.]
Welcome to the Calgary Philosophy Meetup! We're a local community for people interested in reading and discussing philosophy. We hold discussions and other events on a broad range of philosophical topics and problems. No previous experience is required for any of our meetups, only a willingness to engage with the works being discussed. The only basic ground-rule is to please, as with everywhere else in life, be polite and respectful during discussions.
Feel free to propose topics you would like to see (you can do this in the Discussions section), and please contact the organizers if you would like to host an event yourself, or organize events here on a regular basis.
Featured event
Movie Discussion: I Am Cuba (1964) by Mikhail Kalatozov
Both a landmark of radical political cinema and one of the most visually ravishing films ever made, this legendary hymn to revolution shimmers across the screen like a fever dream of rebellion. Mixing Slavic solemnity with Latin sensuality, I Am Cuba’s multiple plots take us from the seductive and decadent world of Batista’s Havana, with its swank nightclubs and glamorous poolside social scene, through the city’s poverty-stricken slums, and on to the first stirrings of revolution with brutally suppressed student protests in the streets and armed revolt in the hills. Tepidly received in both Havana and Moscow for being insufficiently revolutionary, I Am Cuba was shelved and largely forgotten for decades. The film's rediscovery and restoration by Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola in the 1990s was a major cinematic event.
"Immensely entertaining and occasionally inspiring, a delirious combination of Slavic solemnity, Latin exoticism, Communist idealism, and breathtakingly beautiful images." (Rotten Tomatoes)
"Suggests Eisenstein filtered through La Dolce Vita with an Afro-Cuban pulse.” (New York Times)
“As nearly as I can tell, this is all done in one unbroken take. How it was done, I have no idea. It is interesting not only for its technical skill, but also because it betrays a certain interest in la dolce vita that is not entirely in keeping with the movie’s revolutionary, agitprop stance.” (Roger Ebert)
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Join the Toronto Philosophy Meetup to discuss the 1964 cult classic propaganda film I Am Cuba (Spanish: Soy Cuba) by the acclaimed Georgian/Soviet filmmaker Mikhail Kalatozov, recently voted the 106th greatest movie of all time in Sight & Sound's international survey of filmmakers.
Please watch the movie in advance (141 minutes) and bring your thoughts, reactions, and queries to share with us at the meeting. You can stream it with a viewing link to be posted on the main event listing here.
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We'll be joined by many other participants from the Toronto Philosophy Meetup at this meeting — https://www.meetup.com/the-toronto-philosophy-meetup/events/315830442/
Check out other movie discussions in the group, currently happening about 2 or 3 times a month.
This link here is a spreadsheet of the approximately 200 movies we've watched in this group and my ratings for each. You're invited to share your ratings too if you've watched a bunch of these movies with us. (I can add your list here if you send me a link. You can make your own list on sites like Letterboxd or by copying my spreadsheet and filling in your own values. Note that my list doesn't include every movie that Yorgo hosted on cause I didn't watch all of them.)
Upcoming events
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Kant, Sade, Lacan: Enlightenment and its shadow
·OnlineOnlineOver several weeks we will engage with the thought of Immanuel Kant and the Marquis de Sade, culminating with a reading of Jacques Lacan's seminal essay "Kant with Sade".
The dark side of the European Enlightenment is an enduring topic in critical philosophy. The intellectual encounter of Kant with Sade offers us a particularly intense variation on this theme: Kant the rigorous philosopher of the moral law on one side -- Sade the ultimate antinomian and libertarian on the other. In 1807 Hegel argued that the empty abstraction of Kantian duty led directly to the Reign of Terror spearheaded by Robespierre and the Jacobins. Hegel saw that the absolute freedom glorified by the Enlightenment was an abstract universal devoid of living particularity - a force of pure negativity operating in the human subject. Therefore, any attempt to actualize it was bound to produce the caput mortum and lifeless cadaver left behind by the French guillotine.
Should we read Sade's work as the consummate expression of this sinister conspiracy between absolute duty and death? Can we, following Lacan, regard his Philosophy in the Bedroom as a properly philosophical site, akin to the schools of ancient Greece? Paradoxically, Sade saw himself as a radical naturalist and a slayer of superstitious taboos, ultimately championing the vitality of human reason. If we do take Sade seriously as a philosopher, what does his extreme thought tell us about modernity, the (non-)position of the subject and the destiny of our times? While perennial, these questions have renewed significance in our current cultural and geopolitical climate.
Note: Sade's work is notoriously provocative. For this group, we will avoid his graphic portrayals and focus on the philosophical outlines of his radical naturalism and its consequences. Our aim will be to put this perspective in a mature philosophical dialogue with thinkers such as Kant, Hegel, Lacan and the Ancients. As with all texts of this nature, readers' discretion is strongly advised.
We will begin with a reading from Kant's Groundwork, proceed with several sections from Sade, then return to Kant and work our way up to Lacan's essay encompassing both thinkers. Depending on group interest, we may bring other voices into the conversation along the way, such as Hegel, Ancient materialists (Aristippus, Lucretius, Epicurus), contemporary psychoanalysts, French readers of Sade, etc.
⸻READING SCHEDULE
As the reading schedule may evolve, please use the link below for the most up-to-date version:
https://sites.google.com/view/existentialism-and-its-critics/You can find all texts in the Google folder linked at the VERY BOTTOM of this description. The Google Meet link is also posted there.
👇 scroll all the way down for the links 👇
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ABOUT THIS READING GROUP
This is a comprehensive reading group focusing on 20th century French philosophy. Our current project was stimulated by our recent reading of George Bataille's Erotism: Death and Sensuality. Other writers we have discussed include Sartre, de Beauvoir, Foucault, Barthes, Derrida, Deleuze, Kristeva, etc.
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GROUP RULES- Please spend 1-2 hours per week reading and preparing for the discussion.
- Keep your comments concise and relevant to the text.
- Please limit each comment to a maximum of 2-3 minutes. You're welcome to speak as many times as you wish.
- Virtual meeting courtesy applies: let's not interrupt each other and keep mics muted when not speaking.
- We'll focus the discussion with key passages and discussion questions. Be sure to bring your favorite passages, questions, comments, criticisms, etc.
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LINKS AND RESOURCES
Join the Facebook group for more resources and discussion:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/755460079505498If you have attended previous meetings, please fill out a brief survey at this link: https://forms.gle/tEMJ4tw2yVgnTsQD6
All readings can be found in this Google folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VPRdvZYmUKBY3cSxD8xC8sTYtSEKBXDs
Google Meet link to join the meeting:
https://meet.google.com/uho-cdks-dcbNote: To join the Google Meet anonymously, first log out of your Google account and then open the link. Alternatively you can open the link in an Incognito window (Chrome) or Private Browsing (Safari).
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Art: Tous les Éléments / All the Elements by Toyen (Marie Čermínová) (1950)2 attendees
Past events
2088
