In 2010 the Institute joined forces with Lorena Rivero de Beer in starting up the Politics and Aesthetics Reading Group. 2010 saw the group meet 11 times.
The Politics and Aesthetics Reading Group responds to a desire to create a space that supports our effort to read philosophical/political theory outside academic environments and develop our critical thinking. The group is directed to people interested in exploring the complex relationship between art/aesthetics and politics.
First meeting in 2011 saw the group tackle Judith Halberstam’s essay ‘Shadow Feminisms: Queer Negativity/Radical Passivity’.
Then in February we went to Plas Caerdeon in Wales for a retreat weekend: walking, being silent, being interrupted, watching films, reading….
March: After the Retreat we read the first chapter of Jacques Derrida’s The Politics of Friendship – providing a base for us all to question the tangled relationship between politics and friendship – including the friendships developing in the group.
April, we moved on to Radical Pedadgogy with Paulo Friere’s Pedagogy of Freedom and Carmel’s great Scouse dish.
May, we moved on to the environment with Doreen Massey’s essay Landscape/Space/Politics: An Essay.
A trip to allotment and consideration of ‘Animals as Persons’ through David Sztybel‘s text in June.
Then on to Sigmund Freud’s Mourning and Melancholia as well as Santa Sangre film in July.
Then on to Georges Bataille and the Accursed Share in September.
Slavoj Zizek’s Violence was read in October.
Back to Georges Bataille for A Story of an Eye in November.
Finally, Caitlin Moran’s How to be A Woman completes the 2011 cycle together with the Xmas party.
The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home 