Are past events lodged in our minds like photographs stored away in the attic, to be pulled out and occasionally inspected? Are there better and worse ways to revisit our pasts? Are new experiences of the past possible?

In this reading group, we’ll explore ideas of time, memory, and aging from both philosophical and literary perspectives, and from both classical and contemporary works. We’ll consider the experience of aging from a phenomenological perspective (from “the inside”), and we’ll tackle some theories about the past’s ontological status, too.

This group will meet on the second Wednesday of the month from 5:30-7pm in the Athenæum’s Bound.

PDFs of many of the readings will be provided. The other texts can be purchased, borrowed from the library, or accessed online.

Wed, February 8
Cicero, On Old Age (any edition is fine)
Marchioness de Lambert, A Treatise on Old Age in The Works of the Marchioness de Lambert (Dublin, 1752) (PDF provided)

Wed, March 8
Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking (Knopf Doubleday, 2007, $17)
Martha Nussbaum, “Living the Past Forward,” in Nussbaum and Levmore, Aging Thoughtfully (Oxford University Press, 2017) (PDF provided)

Wed, April 12
Simone de Beauvoir, The Coming of Age, selections (W.W Norton, 1996) (PDF
provided)
Martha Nussbaum, “Aging and Control in King Lear,” in Nussbaum and Levmore, Aging Thoughtfully (Oxford University Press, 2017) (PDF provided)

Wed, May 10
Marcel Proust, “Combray,” from Remembrance of Things Past, in Westphal and
Levensen, Time (Hackett, 1993) (PDF provided)
Miguel de Beistegui, “Finding Joy (Involuntary Memory),” in Proust as Philosopher: The Art of Metaphor (Routledge, 2012) (PDF provided)

Nancy Kendrick is Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College in Norton, MA. She has published many articles on the philosophy of the early modern period, including several on the theories of friendship advanced by Mary Astell and Mary Wollstonecraft. She lives in Providence.