We draw our inspiration from Socrates: I say again that the greatest good of man is daily to converse about virtue…and that the life that is unexamined is not worth living.

How do we address the challenge of absurdity and comprehend our life purpose? How do we understand our identity, our authentic self? The Examined Life group continues its investigation of these two central existential issues by discussing a relevant group of short stories, essays, and poems.

This group meets on the fourth Wednesday of each month, September through May, 5-7pm at the Athenæum.

*VIRTUAL MEETING* Wed, September 22 | The Fall, Albert Camus

Wed, October 27 | A Clean, Well Lighted Place, Ernest Hemingway (found in The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories)

Tues, November 23 | Notes from Underground, Feodor Dostoevsky (found in The Short Novels of Dostoevsky)

Wed, December 22 | Woman in the Dunes, Kōbō Abe

Wed, January 26 | The Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir

Wed, February 23 | Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street, Herman Melville

Wed, March 23 | The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka;
Borges and I, Jorge Luis Borges (found in Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley)

Wed, April 27 | Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey, Haruki Murakami

Wed, May 25 | Hamlet, William Shakespeare

The Examined Life Discussion Group is curated and led by Robert Allio, an Athenæum member with a continuing interest in the humanities.