The most recent gathering of my meetup group was well attended and livelier than usual. We discussed Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. Upcoming meetups will be about Anton Chekhov (short stories), another Murakami book (Dance, Dance, Dance), and Jeff Hawkins (A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence). I reviewed A Thousand Brains a while ago on my YouTube channel, and I look forward to talking about it with others. If you’re interested in joining the meetup group, feel free to do so. There are currently 750 members and we occasionally have some a lively discussion.
My Patreon Reading Group started on Sunday with the Jung Reader. We will have another four meetings on Carl Jung and I will most likely go on to develop a mini-course on Jung. I have made a schedule for those meetings, also setting up Eventbrite links to make it possible for people to join without joining my Patreon. I have been drawn to Jung partly as a result of reading Murakami and partly as a result of Jordan Peterson’s influence on popular culture. The Jung-Murakami connection is more interesting to me and I am reading the two writers through each other without letting either of them subsume the other. I hope to explore their connections and disharmonies in future writing. In the meantime, I enjoy discussing Jung with this group.
Wednesday afternoon sessions with a small group of psychology students (“Coffee with Prof. Gozli”) will continue, although we are taking a break this week. This is a free-style discussion group, without any serious attachment to a topic or a project. In those sessions, I try to practice and promote the idea of “center-less” conversations, where the authority of “the Professor” is less decisive in what we talk about and how we talk. Places like this, and their availability, is helpful for the development of students’ confidence and self-reliance.
A few other meetings are on the horizon, all of which associated with my YouTube channel. Our discussion of Hayden White’s Tropics of Discourse with John David will continue, with our second session toward the end of this week, most likely with the addition of O.G. Rose in our group. I have grown quite fond of John already, and even though I haven’t had a live conversation with O.G. Rose yet, I am sure the three of us will have an interesting and fruitful discussion. If all goes well, Tyson and I will also begin a series of conversations this week. Finally, I will soon have an interview with a phenomenologist, whom I have known and admired for a few years and I am excited to introduce on the channel.
With regard to writing projects, I am (very slowly) editing a collection of book chapters (written by various authors). Most of the chapters are ready, but the project as a whole still needs quite a bit of time and energy from me. Once I am done with the chapters, I need to co-write an introductory chapter for the collection and then send it to the publisher. Another relatively smaller writing task, due soon, is a brief commentary for Constructivist Foundations. Once these and a few other minor tasks (e.g., book reviews) are completed, there will be time and space for another relatively “big” writing project.