Reading Group (Thought Soup) - Health Communism
Hi everyone, welcome to a new book. For the next few weeks, we're going to be reading Health Communism by Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant.
Support The Sameer Project
If you haven't bought the book yet, we're just getting started, so now's still a great time to get the book. You can buy it here. Purchases made through the Workshops4Gaza fundraiser send proceeds (or more, if you opt to donate more) to The Sameer Project.
If you can't buy the book (or can't buy it from Open Poetry because of shipping constraints or something), please consider making a donation directly to The Sameer Project, if you have the money for it. If you don't please consider sharing the book (or the reading group) with comrades and other like-minded friends.
Reading Group Format
Whenever we start a new book, I want to get everyone on the same page about the format (and, occasionally, like right now, modify the format).
There are a few ways you can keep up with and participate in the group:
Emails: I'll send emails on Mondays and Thursdays. On Monday, I'll remind you what to read this week. On Thursday, I'll follow up with some reflections from that week's reading. That'll give you a few days to actually read and form your own thoughts.
You should subscribe to get emails, by the way.
Video Chat: We'll have video chats on Saturdays. I'll include a reminder at the end of Thursday emails, but basically you can join in whatever mode you want (video, audio, or text chat). Usually it's a small group of people; we talk about whatever idea we were fixated on or captivated by, or things that we bristled against (And some weeks when we all just struggled to get any reading done, we talk about that)
Reading Schedule
Okay, with that all laid out, this week let's read Introduction & Chapter 1: "Surplus". The tentative schedule for the next few weeks looks like this:
- October 6: Introduction & Chapter 1 (Surplus)
- October 13: Chapter 2 (Waste)
- October 20: Chapter 3 (Labor)
- October 27: Chapter 4 (Madness)
- November 3: Chapter 5 (Pharmacology)
- November 10: Chapter 6 (Border)
- November 17: Chapter 7 (Care)
- November 24: Chapter 8 (Cure) & Chapter 9 (Host)
(I'm aiming for us to read about 20 pages per week)
If you have questions, thoughts, comments, observations, or anything else you'd like to share, please feel free to reach out.
Okay, more to share on Thursday.
Since you read to the end
("thought soup" is the name the signal chat decided on at some point. If I remember correctly, I think someone joked about feeling like we were simmering all of our thoughts together and then we started talking about soup.)