The Vancouver Chat (Reboot!)

Sun, Oct 19 · 2:00 PM PDT

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The Betrothed - Alessandro Manzoni (week 3)

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This meetup is hosted by Wisdom and Woe. For more details and to sign up for this event, go to: https://www.meetup.com/wisdom-and-woe/events/310788286

The Betrothed (Alessandro Manzoni, 1827) is considered Italy's "national novel"; a founding masterpiece of its culture; "a classic that has never ceased shaping reality in Italy" (Italo Calvino); and "a gift to humanity" (Verdi). For its descriptions, history, characters, wit, and expansiveness, it draws comparisons to Tolstoy, Scott, Dickens, Thackery, and Melville. It is not only "the most famous and widely read novel in the Italian language," but also "the most inspirational novel of the Risorgimento."

It is set in early 17th-century Lombardy amid Spanish occupation and the extremes of famine, war, and plague. But its basic theme transcends "a given, concrete, historical crisis" to speak not only to "the Italian people as a whole," but to universal themes of love, faith, and justice.

The central protagonists are two peasant-born lovers who find themselves opposed by a corrupt local tyrant. Just as the titular lovers are emblematic of Italy's resistance to foreign domination, the setting--teeming with numerous characters and points-of-view, filtered through an omniscient narrator--evokes its fragmented polity and sense of Providential unity.

The Betrothed helped establish a common literary language across Italy's diverse regional dialects. Tackling a philological debate known as the questione della lingua, Manzoni spent nearly two decades reworking the novel's idiom, producing a hybrid Florentine dialect, both formal and vernacular, that endeavored to do for the nation linguistically what the Risorgimento would do for it politically.

Schedule:

• Week 1 (September 21): Introduction-Chapter 8
• Week 2 (October 5): Chapters 9-23
• Week 3 (October 19): Chapters 24-38

Wisdom and Woe is a philosophy and literature discussion group dedicated to exploring the world, work, life, and times of Herman Melville and the 19th century Romantic movement. The group is free and open to anybody with an interest in learning and growing by "diving deeper" into "time and eternity, things of this world and of the next, and books, and publishers, and all possible and impossible matters."

Tue, Oct 21 · 3:45 PM PDT

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FTI: The Impact of Oral Health on Systemic Health: A Vital Connection

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We will examine how periodontal disease, an infection of the gums, can, by spreading inflammation throughout the body, cause disease in the heart, lungs, brain and other organs, contribute to cancer, autoimmune disease and dementia.

Speaker: Michael Strassberg

Note: social time for our community 15 minutes before the presentation.

To get familiar with our past events, feel free to check out our YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmixGB9GdrptyEWovEj80zg

After registering via zoom, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

We publish our event recordings on our Youtube channel to offer our help to anyone who would like to but can’t attend the meeting, so we need to give this clause. If you don’t want to be recorded, just remain on mute and keep your video off.

Here’s our legal notice: For valuable consideration received, by joining this event I hereby grant Free Thinker Institute and its legal representatives and assigns, the irrevocable and unrestricted right to use and publish any and all Zoom recordings for trade, advertising and any other commercial purpose, and to alter the same without any restriction. I hereby release Free Thinker Institute and its legal representatives and assigns from all claims and liability related to said video recordings.

Sun, Oct 26 · 2:00 PM PDT

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Masaniello - Alexandre Dumas

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This meetup is hosted by Wisdom and Woe. For more details and to sign up for this event, go to: https://www.meetup.com/wisdom-and-woe/events/291273038

Tommaso Anielo (better known as "Masaniello") was an illiterate fishmonger-turned-"Fisherman King of Naples." His tale of rebellion, victory, betrayal, and defeat--in other words, all the elements of a good story--has been adapted extensively for literature, poetry, paint, plays, and opera.

In the mid-seventeenth century, Naples was under the rule of Habsburg Spain. To supply its protracted military campaigns, the Court of Madrid fettered the city with ever-increasing demands for men, money, and equipment. A new tax on fruit finally pushed the citizenry into revolt.

On 7 July 1647, Naples was celebrating an annual festival featuring a historical recreation of the Battle of Lepanto (7 October 1571). This battle was symbolically significant not only as a military victory of the Spanish over the invading Ottomans, but as a religious victory of the Catholics over invading Islam. Masaniello took the opportunity to rally the mock armies into an actual fighting force and marched upon the castle of the Spanish viceroy.

Masaniello's victory was short-lived. He was assassinated less than ten days later, on 16 July 1647. But from the moment of his death, his figure became legendary. During the 19th-century Risorgimento, he was exalted as a freedom fighter, a hero of the Italian proletariat, and a spiritual successor to Cola di Rienzo.

Wisdom and Woe is a philosophy and literature discussion group dedicated to exploring the world, work, life, and times of Herman Melville and the 19th century Romantic movement. The group is free and open to anybody with an interest in learning and growing by "diving deeper" into "time and eternity, things of this world and of the next, and books, and publishers, and all possible and impossible matters."

Sun, Oct 26 · 5:30 PM PDT

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Movie Discussion (Spooky Halloween Edition) – The Exorcist (1973)

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The Exorcist (1973), directed by William Friedkin, is a landmark horror film that follows the terrifying possession of a young girl, Regan, and her mother’s desperate efforts to save her through an exorcism performed by two Catholic priests. Based on the novel by William Peter Blatty, the film explores themes of faith, death, the battle between good and evil, and the limits of science in the face of the supernatural. Renowned for its chilling atmosphere, groundbreaking special effects, and intense performances, The Exorcist remains a powerful meditation on belief, suffering, and the unknown.

The film was the first horror film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture (along with 9 other nominations, winning 2) and it is widely considered one of the scariest movies ever made.

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For Halloween week, join the Toronto Philosophy Meetup to discuss the 1973 horror classic The Exorcist directed by the American filmmaker William David Friedkin, recently voted the 225th greatest movie of all time in Sight & Sound's international survey of filmmakers. Friedkin has said about his film that "I never talked about making a horror film. We always felt we were making a film about the mystery of faith."

Please watch the movie in advance (122 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.

A spooky trailer.

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/310055149/

Check out other film discussions in the group every Friday and occasionally other days.