“For the poet, language is a structure of the external world. The speaker is in a situation in language; he is in­vested with words. They are prolongations of his meanings, his pincers, his antennae, his eyeglasses. He maneuvers them from within; he feels them as if they were his body; he is surrounded by a verbal body which he is hardly aware of and which extends his action upon the world. The poet is outside of language.” - Jean-Paul Sartre, What is Literature?

 
 

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Reading list for 2023-2025

  • Phenomenology of Perception, by Maurice Merleau-Ponty

  • Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir

  • Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre

  • Being and Time, Martin Heidegger

  • Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche

  • Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche

Sign up for a Book Club interview at the bottom of this page via the scheduler. If there is not a time available that works for you, just email me and we will find a time. This interview is just to get a better understanding of who you are, what brings you to this book club, and why you want to read this material.

The Book Club doesn’t cost anything to be in. I just ask that you make a commitment to reading the material and participating in discussion. You can choose to leave the book club at any time.

LATEST UPDATE***

We have people from 19 countries and 6 continents! Colombia, Ecuador, Thailand, Brazil, Switzerland, Romania, The Netherlands, Nepal, Panama, Germany, Australia, India, Singapore, Pakistan, Nigeria, Algeria, Ireland, London, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Chicago, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas, California, and Seattle. This has made it a bit difficult to find a time that works for us all to meet in. Which is also unfortunate because I wanted everyone to have the opportunity to hear from all different cultural backgrounds worldwide at every meeting. Everyone in this book club has been interviewed to ensure that everyone is seriously interested in reading this material, engaging in discussion, and is drawn to Existential and Phenomenological literature in nature. Many of us have had education in philosophy but some of us have not! Everyone has had a pull to philosophical text and is eager to begin reading and having bi-weekly dialogues. For some English is not their first language, we will make sure to create space to unpack the meaning of words, both in the definition and in the context of this philosopher. Afterall, part of what we do in these dialogues is unpack the meaning of the text.

What to expect:

There will be an assigned 15 pages for each meeting. It is important to have read the text, but if for some reason you were unable to, we still encourage you to attend for discussion.

Please come to the meeting with something you are interested in bringing up: a question that the text elicited in you, a passage from the text you would like for us to unpack and think more on as a group, a criticism, a love, something you don’t quite understand, a concept you need to unravel more (such as what is being? What is nothingness? Sartre said this, “…” that contradicts…or …. Whatever comes to mind for you). You could also bring an experience of something in your life that relates, something the text made you think of within the world today, or the ideas of other thinkers, etc. Even if you just feel like you didn’t understand it and it didn’t move you at all, that’s okay to share. We just want to cultivate a welcoming safe opening space where everyone can bring their experience and thoughts of the text.


Having something prepared like this will elicit meaningful rich dialogue in our meetings!

When I met with you all, I had originally imagined running one meeting bi-weekly that we all attend, but with the exciting worldwide participation the time zones stretch so far across the globe that I needed to bring on a co-leader who is Philosopher Katie Sulatycki aka @Katie.Sula.Exists on IG. To help facilitate an additional meeting that aligns better with Asia, Australia, and the Middle East.

I, Victoria Venturella lives in Seattle, and Katie Sulatycki lives in Ireland. Katie will run a meeting on Saturday morning possibly 9am GMT. Victoria will run a meeting possibly 10am PST. Sometimes I may pop into Katie’s meeting, and sometimes she may pop into mine! We both will serve as a resource for you regardless of what you group you attend. You can also attend both if you’d like. Being mindful of everyone’s time zones and schedules, we will leave it up to each of you to decide which session best suits your schedule.

Check out the Time Zones with the current countries in the book club: https://www.timeanddate.com/time/map/#!cities=240,106,236,176,14,125,78,136,179,64,234,213,49,16,117,192,37,797,24

We will also be running a discord server where everyone can chat with everyone, add things they find from texts, discuss timing, ideas, thoughts, anything related to all things this subject matter. If you can not attend one of the meetings, then you can choose to attend the other meeting. It’s up to you. I am hoping we also have other countries join us, and other people from the countries that have already joined. This will allow both meetings to have the international experience which I really want this book club to provide.

There will be an #introduction page in the discord. Please introduce yourself, your name, where you come from, what brought you to philosophy. So that everyone can become familiar with one another. You will be seeing each other twice a month via zoom.

As we read this book there will be opportunity for writing. Writing about something you want to write about inspired from the book or our discussions. I will publish our writings on the Existential Dialogues blog, you are also free to publish your writing anywhere else you’d like.

You will receive two zoom links for both meetings via email and posted in the Discord Server. You can access either one from the same link while we are running the Being and Nothing Series.

If you know of someone else that would be a great fit for this book club! Let them know about us! We want to try to get more people from all over who are interested.

Official start date will be announced in the discord group shortly. We may start this month sometime soon. Or we may begin the first weekend in February. If you want to join the book club and you missed the start date that is absolutely okay! We always want people to join, as long as you are willing to begin the book where we already are. You are more than welcomed to do extra reading to catch up to where we are but that is not required. You then can bring old material we haven’t thought of in a moment to us fresh on your mind! It will mix well with the part we are in no matter where it is.

It is wild that someone from all these countries worldwide has an interest in reading Existential Literature, is willing to dedicate their time to reading and discussing this book with all of us. I am honored to have the opportunity to work with all of you!