LitPDX seeks to amplify marginalized voices, and welcomes all, their ideas, their events, and their words.

For details regarding specific events please contact the organizers or venues. If you are an organizer or venue and would like to reach out to us please feel free to contact us or submit an event using our submission form. We’d love to hear from you!

mary finn

  1. Events
  2. mary finn

Events Search and Views Navigation

Event Views Navigation

Today

Delve Readers Seminar Online: The Ethics of Ambiguity and The Metamorphosis

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In her book The Ethics of Ambiguity, the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir asks us to consider what it means to exercise individual freedom and to live in community with others. Where does our individual freedom begin and end? Simone de Beauvoir claims that our personal freedom can be manifest only when we “will others free.” How do we create a life where we protect our individual freedom and work toward the freedom of our neighbor? Can both forms of freedom truly exist? de Beauvoir wrote The Ethics of Ambiguity in 1947, and she questions and seeks to define personal ethics and freedom in the wake of Nazi atrocities and totalitarianism. We will read The Ethics of Ambiguity in its entirety. At first glance, Franz Kafka…

Continue readingDelve Readers Seminar Online: The Ethics of Ambiguity and The Metamorphosis
$150

Delve Online Fall 2020: Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

What is the purpose of public life? Should we live as thinkers or doers? These are the questions that Hannah Arendt tackles in her 1958 work ​The Human Condition. Philosophers have long argued that the ideal state for the human condition is a life of contemplation and inward-focus. Arendt questions the value of the ​vita contemplativa​ and she proposes that a life of action, ​vita activa​, is central to the human condition. Hannah Arendt is one of the most influential thinkers and writers of the 20th century. She is typically associated with her work on totalitarianism and the philosophical roots of evil and judgment. ​The Human Condition​ offers a comprehensive view of what Arendt sees as the inherent value of living with others and collectively…

Continue readingDelve Online Fall 2020: Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition
$230

Delve Readers Seminar: Imagining the Future: Dystopic and Utopic Fiction

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Many of us have described the past year as “apocalyptic” or “dystopian.” We’ve been living through a global pandemic, a critical presidential election, ravaging wildfires, and a national reckoning with our country’s legacy of racism and police violence. Utopic and dystopic fiction can help us make sense of our experience and ask questions about our future. In this seminar we’ll read three works of utopic and dystopic fiction written by women authors. In our reading and discussion of each text, we will focus on a few core questions: Who are we, as a society? Who do we want to be? What gets in the way of becoming the society we dream of? What do fictional dystopias and utopias teach us about what we fear and…

Continue readingDelve Readers Seminar: Imagining the Future: Dystopic and Utopic Fiction
$240

Premise Course: What is feminist power? Who decides? Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Join us in a discussion of Aristophanes’ ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata and Spike Lee’s modern film adaptation of the book Chi-Raq. The class will focus on the Aristophanes comedy and will use Spike Lee’s film as a point of modern reference and comparison. About the book: “Aristophanes’ comic masterpiece of war and sex remains one of the greatest plays ever written. Led by the title character, the women of the warring city-states of Greece agree to withhold sexual favours with their husbands until they agree to cease fighting. The war of the sexes that ensues makes Lysistrata a bawdy comedy without peer in the history of theatre.” – Premise Goodreads page About the film: Spike Lee’s 2015 Chi-Raq is designed to provoke and make us…

Continue readingPremise Course: What is feminist power? Who decides? Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq
$35

Premise Conversation Course: How will the pandemic change us and our world? Camus’ The Plague

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

How will the pandemic change us and our world? Camus’ The Plague (Learn about what a Premise class is like here: https://www.premiseinstitute.com/premisefaq ) Many of us have described the past year as apocalyptic. We’ve been living through a global pandemic, a critical presidential election, destructive wildfires, and a national reckoning with our country’s legacy of racism and police violence. Literature and philosophy can help us make sense of our experiences and ask questions about our future. In this class, we’ll read works set during pandemics. We will start with Albert Camus’ existential novel The Plague and look deeply at themes of isolation, loneliness, and fate. Together, we’ll use The Plague to dig into the ways the COVID-19 pandemic has changed our lives and discuss relevant…

Continue readingPremise Conversation Course: How will the pandemic change us and our world? Camus’ The Plague
$35

Premise Course: Do we shape our world or does it shape us? Arendt’s The Human Condition

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

(Learn about Premise classes here: https://www.premiseinstitute.com/premisefaq) What is the role of technology in shaping us? What is the purpose of public life? Should we live as thinkers or doers? These are the questions that Hannah Arendt tackles in her 1958 work The Human Condition. Philosophers have long argued that the ideal state for the human condition is a life of contemplation and inward focus. Arendt questions the value of the vita contemplativa and proposes that a life of action, vita activa, is central to the human condition. Hannah Arendt is one of the most influential thinkers and writers of the twentieth century. She is typically associated with her work on totalitarianism and the philosophical roots of evil and judgment. The Human Condition offers a comprehensive…

Continue readingPremise Course: Do we shape our world or does it shape us? Arendt’s The Human Condition
$150

Premise Course: How do illness and pain define the human experience? Zadie Smith’s Intimations and Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Illness is a defining aspect of the human experience. In this course we will explore the question: How do illness and pain define and shape the human experience? We’ll read and discuss Susan Sontag’s classic 1978 essay Illness as Metaphor and a selection of essays in Zadie Smith’s newest collection. Participants will read Smith’s essays about Covid and our collective understanding of how disease shapes who we are. Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor: In 1978 Susan Sontag wrote Illness as Metaphor, a classic work described by Newsweek as "one of the most liberating books of its time." A cancer patient herself when she was writing the book, Sontag shows how the metaphors and myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to the suffering of patients…

Continue readingPremise Course: How do illness and pain define the human experience? Zadie Smith’s Intimations and Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor
$35
Click a category label below to view the calendar with only events in that specific category.