Zoom Book Club For "A Few Days In Athens"

Kalosyni has made the proposal that we consider a chapter by chapter book review of "A Few Days In Athens" as a format for a special series of Epicurean Zoom meetings.

The proposal came up in the context of wanting to open up our online meetings to a larger audience, for example posting a link publicly on the EP Facebook group. Doing a chapter by chapter review of AFDIA would allow for a format in which we open the meeting with maybe a 15 minute recap of the events of a chapter (so as to provide continuity) and then go around the "table" letting each participant introduce themselves and say just a minute or two about that chapter. We could then use the balance of time for open discussion and then adjourn (probably after no more than an hour).

To deal with security issues we would tell people to use video only if they really want to do so, with the idea that video would generally be off (except for a shared screen of bullet points for the chapter).

If so, we would want a time that is workable for as many as possible. I have heard it suggested that maybe Sunday Night eastern time might provide a good time, but an early Sunday afternoon time might allow for European participation.

Would this be of interest? It would be fairly easy to do. Would it be worthwhile?

It would be particularly helpful if some number of our core people could take the lead in rotating the opening discussion of the events of each chapter.

Again, this would be easy, as each chapter is relatively short and direct and would require very little preparation.

I already have the chapter topic outline available here: http://afewdaysinathens2.epicureanfriends.com/ContentsAndFindingAid/

Yes I have heard of those things but I think that there are indeed now safeguards like the waiting room, etc. But those are good cautions.

Well that is an interesting thought. Is it practical? What do others think about that?

Sixteen Chapters, right?

I think this is an idea that pretty definitely needs to go forward. I doubt I am up for starting this Sunday night, but I think it makes sense to target a Sunday afternoon or night either Jan 30 or Feb 6.

Just like when we first went through Lucretius, it actually adds a level of freshness if people have just read the material recently, and have not read the full book.

Announcement Posted at Facebook.

Online "A Few Days In Athens" Book Review

Planning is underway for a Zoom online "Book Club" read-through, chapter by chapter, of Frances Wright's "A Few Days In Athens." This is a fictional introduction to Epicurus through the eyes of a formerly-Stoic young philosophy student. Our plan is to do one chapter per week, for about an hour, with a short presentation of each chapter at the start of the session, followed by a round-the-table discussion afterward. We will be screen-sharing to highlight the text so participants will not be visible by video unless they request to be.

Current plans are for a late-afternoon or early evening start time by Eastern USA time, but we recognize that causes problems for participation in Europe, and if you are there and prefer an earlier start time, let us know in the thread and we will see what we can do. We will probably start Sunday January 30 depending on level of interest, so let us know if you would like to participate. In order to prevent disruptions we will ask those who wish to attend to sign up and you will be sent the appropriate zoom link close to the start time. We will probably set up a "private" Facebook group for attendees to make that process easier.

Let us know your thoughts on this.

A Few Days In Athens

We have four already signed up at Facebook and I think this is the kind of activity that we will probably get good participation from the Facebook-oriented people.

Correcting now to "good" from " food"!

I think that would mean sometime from about 12 pm eastern to be reasonable for the west coast USA to about 3 pm eastern so as not to be too late for Europe. Let's see what other responses come in.