Grouping Read: A Workshop with Ethan Philbrick

What is the history of reading groups on the left? How does reading produce, or not produce, collective subjects? What kind of action, or non-action, is reading together? How do politically committed artists experiment with forms of reading as an opportunity to reimagine the relationship between thinking, feeling, and doing? This workshop, convened by the writer and artist Ethan Philbrick, gathers participants in pursuit of such questions. The session will begin with an encounter with a series of case studies in which writers and artists collectivize and activate the scene of reading: Eduardo Cadava and Sara Nadal-Melsió’s collaboratively written book, Politically Red; Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė’s performance project Young Girl Reading Group; and Lana Lin’s filmic recitation, Audre Lorde Cancer Journals Revisited. In its final moments, the workshop will turn towards an exploration of Philbrick’s own performance tactics of reading aloud, memorization, and vocal music. Building on a conceptual distinction gleaned from the work of Ruth Wilson Gilmore, the workshop will approach each of these investigations as an opportunity to think about what it might mean to move from “recitation” to “rehearsal” when thinking about the relationship between reading and action, theory and practice.

Ethan Philbrick is a cellist, artist, and writer. He is currently curator-in-residence at The Poetry Project and a member of the curatorial collective for Offerings. In 2023, Philbrick published Group Works: Art, Politics, and Collective Ambivalence with Fordham University Press. His performances have been called “overwhelmingly beautiful” and “extremely strange” in The Nation and his writing has been characterized as “rich and fascinating” in e-flux. He has taught at Pratt Institute, Muhlenberg College, New York University, Wesleyan College, Yale University, Sarah Lawrence College, and The New School.

Please write to Laura Nelson at lauranelson@princeton.edu to RSVP for this workshop.