University at Buffalo (UB)
The Philosophical Reading Group (PRG) is dedicated to reading major texts of the philosophical tradition. In a friendly, collaborative, and nonauthoritarian context, faculty and students read approximately fifteen to thirty pages per week in an effort to understand the nuances of the philosophical text’s arguments, its logic and structure, as well as its limitations. The PRG is committed to reading philosophy, taking seriously the materiality, the textuality, of its expression. It is concerned with the rhetoric of philosophy as much as with its stated ideas. Participation in the PRG serves as an excellent introduction not only to philosophy, but to the exigencies of reading.
Historically, the PRG has read works from the major thinkers of the continental tradition, but it is open to all areas and periods of philosophy. The PRG privileges, however, works of a sufficient complexity and density that warrant and reward intense conversation and patient reading. At the end of each semester, the participants in the PRG decide what the group will read in the following semester.
Students can now receive “extensive” credit for participation in the PRG. For more information about receiving credit and about the semester’s meeting schedule, contact David Johnson, dj@buffalo.edu.