December of The Dispossessed
Dec 1, 2015–Jan 2, 2016
Join us for a #litgeeks Book Club reading of The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
“There was a wall. It did not look important. It was built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult could look right over it, and even a child could climb it. Where it crossed the roadway, instead of having a gate it degenerated into mere geometry, a line, an idea of boundary. But the idea was real. It was important. For seven generations there had been nothing more important than that wall….”
So begins Ursula K. Le Guin’s Hugo and Nebula award-winning novel, The Dispossessed, first published in 1975. Described as “utopian science fiction,” The Dispossessed follows the journey of a visionary physicist named Shevek, who leaves his home world of Annares (a kind of anarchist, revolutionary utopia), to pursue what he calls a General Temporal Theory with the help of researchers on Arres’ sister world, Urras—a planet riven by the conflict between competing capitalist and authoritarian systems. Shevek’s journey will lead to the development of a radical new communication device, which will transform the future of those worlds.
The novel explores the themes of social transformation, ideology, collectivism, individual freedom, and the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis—as well as the deep structure of time.
We will be discussing the book together on our new discussion platform, Infinite Conversations, as well through a series of three live Google hangouts, tentatively scheduled for:
- December 5, 6 pm PST / 9 pm EST — Opening: Hangout #1
- December 19, 6 pm PST / 9 pm EST — Midway: Hangout #2
- TBD — Closing: Hangout #3
This will be our first #litgeeks book club read together! It will also serve as a beta test of our format, forum software, and other systems. We will welcome your feedback to help us evolve our future readings.
Of course, you are free to read at your own pace, but we will stick to a schedule for the discussion. (The schedule will be posted on the forum, and sent via email.)
Participation is free. We are organizing this book club in the spirit of what we’re calling social poetics, which is the idea that we can create beauty, meaning, and positive change together through the artistry of our intelligent interactions.
THIS READING HAS ENDED. HOWEVER, YOU CAN SIGN UP FOR THE NEXT READING BY CLICKING THE BUTTON BELOW.
#litgeeks Book Club is a project of A Theory of Everybody: a platform for social poetics & planetary thought. We are an open-source cooperative of writers, readers, artists, thinkers, activists, and other misfits dedicated to exploring the question: How can art reimagine the world? Learn more »