Events calendar
Select a day to view events,
slide ← & → between months.
No events on the selected day.
Reading Group: Mikhail Bakhtin’s book Rabelais. Session 4.
This is our long-awaited reading group on David Graeber’s favorite Mikhail Bakhtin’s Rabelais and His World. We will discuss Chapter Two: The Language of the Marketplace in Rabelais. These meetings are limited in number. The group is meeting 12 times during 2024/25, on the last Thursday of each month. Please follow these steps to subscribe to […]
Reading Group: Mikhail Bakhtin’s book Rabelais. Session 3.
This is our long-awaited reading group on David Graeber’s favorite Mikhail Bakhtin’s Rabelais and His World. We will discuss chapter One: Rabelais in the History of Laughter:on mediaeval humour: pp. 96-103; on obscenity: pp.109-110; Rabelais and revolution: p. 119; on seriousness: pp. 122-124; on the belly: pp. 126-127; on the historicity of jokes: pp. 134-136; Rabelais’s […]
"There Was Never a West": Greg Yudin in conversation with Mirko Canevaro
The third discussion of Graeber’s essay “There Never Was a West”: A conversation between Greg Yudin and Mirko Canevaro, in the frame of “The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World…”. The third meeting of “The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World…” reading group, the last one of 2024, will be a conversation between sociologist Greg Yudin and […]
Reading Group: Mikhail Bakhtin’s book Rabelais. Session 2.
This is our long-awaited reading group on David Graeber’s favorite Mikhail Bakhtin’s Rabelais and His World. We will discuss chapter One: Rabelais in the History of Laughter:on Rabelais: pp. 59-61; on laughter: pp. 66-73; on the ‘feast of fools’: pp. 74-75; pp. 78-82; on parody: pp. 87-95. These meetings are limited in number. The group is […]
"There Was Never a West": dicsussion with Marcus Rediker
The second discussion of David Graeber’s essay “There Never Was a West”, led and moderated by Marcus Rediker, in the frame of “The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World…” reading group. In this session, we will be joined by Marcus Rediker, a historian, writer, teacher, and activist. Register here. View the full program of “The Ultimate Hidden […]
Talk with Peter Sahlins about his book "Forest Rites: The War of the Demoiselles in Nineteenth-Century France."
On the 31st October, we host a meeting with the author Peter Sahlins about Mikhail Bakhtin’s book, Rabelais as well as about David Graeber’s new book, The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World. Peter Sahlins is the author of, Forest Rites: The War of the Demoiselles in Nineteenth-Century France, which tells the history of the The […]
Reading Group: Mikhail Bakhtin’s book Rabelais. With Peter Sahlins.
This is our long-awaited reading group on David Graeber’s favorite Mikhail Bakhtin’s Rabelais and His World. We will discuss: introduction: pp.1-12; on collectivity and the body: pp. 18-23; on the grotesque and the mask: pp. 39-40. Since the meeting will be held on October 31st, which is Halloween, we invite everyone to dress up for the occasion […]
reading group on Material Temporalities
The Soviet Temporalities Room is opening its autumn season with a reading group on Material Temporalities. Our first session is on Tuesday, October 8, at 4pm BST, curated byJulie Deschepper. We will discuss a volume that Julie has just co-edited, titled Time and Material Culture. Rethinking Soviet Temporalities (July 2024). The volume offers an exploration into the temporalities of Soviet […]
Enshittification; Was There Ever an Old, Good Internet? / Cory Doctorow
In this session of “The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World…” reading group ( OCTOBER 3 / 2024, 8 pm GMT), we will be joined by Cory Doctorow and discuss Enshittification. Enshittification: Was There Ever an Old, Good Internet?It sure feels like the internet used to be good. What made it good? Was it better people? Better […]
"I Didn't Understand How Widespread Rape Was. Then the Penny Dropped": discussion with Dyan Neary Sep 2, 2024 08:00 PM (GTM)
As part of The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World is … reading group DGI organising a series of talks. On September 2nd, we will meet to discuss David Graeber’s essay I Didn’t Understand How Widespread Rape Was. Then the Penny Dropped. We will be joined by Dyan Neary, a writer, journalist, academic and documentary […]
Events list
Pedagogies of Care, part 3
The third encounter of ‘Pedagogies of Care’ series will host artists and activists Mariette Schiltz and Edna Gee, both closely linked with ‘Isola Art Center’ and Isola Pepe Verde projects in Milan, Italy. ‘Isola Art Center’ was a free experimental and dynamic platform that combined internationally acclaimed contemporary art, emerging young art, and theoretical research with […]
The Virtues of Diogenes, Part 3: The Quest for Graeber’s Golden Waistcoat
Building on the first two sessions, in this third session we will review what we have learnt about the world of Diogene’s philosophy, why it was rated by Graeber and focus on what it means for how we navigate theory and practice. For Diogene’s Cynics and later the Stoics, the mythical manifestation of how to […]
Fetish and Value, part 3
“When I conceived the idea of writing my own ‘Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value’ in the late 1990s, I originally … imagined its appearance would be followed by irate critiques from many of the principals insisting I had got their core arguments wrong, and a flurry of productive debates. Nothing of the sort ensued.” […]
Pedagogies of Care, part 2
Militant Care. Pedagogies in action. A conversation with Contrafilé Group The second meeting of Pedagogies of Care project will host a conversation between Brazil based artists and activists Contrafilé Group (currently, Cibele Lucena, Joana Zatz Mussi, and Rafael Leona), Andris Brinkmanis, senior lecturer and the course Leader of BA in Painting and Visual Arts at NABA in […]
Housekeeping Committee
This is a group of people who assist room curators in taking care of their rooms.If you have the time and interest to help someone realize their vision, their educational efforts, please join us. We will also be discussing the development of a critical project: the Mastadon server, aimed towards creating a publicly run social […]
The Virtues of Diogenes, Part 2: Character Creation
In the second session, we will explore the world of Diogene’s philosophy by creatively comparing Diogenes Cynics with his contemporary Xenophon’s Cynegeticus. We will speculate on both these dog-associated philosophies and imagine what they might tell us about the worlds and the ecologies they imply. We will be supported in this by anthropologist Avi KBH, […]
Fetish and Value, part 2
“When I conceived the idea of writing my own ‘Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value’ in the late 1990s, I originally … imagined its appearance would be followed by irate critiques from many of the principals insisting I had got their core arguments wrong, and a flurry of productive debates. Nothing of the sort ensued.” […]
Pedagogies of Care, part 1
Hosted and curated by Andris Brinkmanis, senior lecturer and the course Leader of BA in Painting and Visual Arts at NABA in Milan and Visiting Professor for the Art Academy of Latvia Curatorial Course, this series of encounters will be designed around the legacies of historical figures – from Francisco Ferrer Guardia, Asja Lacis, Bertolt […]
Housekeeping Committee
This is a group of people who assist room curators in taking care of their rooms.If you have the time and interest to help someone realize their vision, their educational efforts, please join us. We will also be discussing the development of a critical project: the Mastadon server, aimed towards creating a publicly run social […]
Seminars of Care, Part 2
Elke Krasny and Nika Dubrovksy will continue Seminars of Care in February 2024. Following the first session of Seminars of Care on November 19, The David Graeber Institute will continue the series with the second session on February 24 at 18:00 (London time). The meeting will explore Marxist feminists’ analyses of caring labor and David Graeber’s proposal to integrate […]