pre-recorded INTRODUCTION
Gather Round The Fire At Night: An Introduction
- Lecture: What can we learn from close-reading literature and close-reading charts together? Learning how to enter a chart through story. Or, learning how to enter story through a chart. (Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries, Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, plus a discussion of the forthcoming class texts and charts of case-study writers)
- Discussion: What makes a “good” story? What makes a “good” writer? What makes a “good” astrologer? What are your goals for the class?
- Administrative: Set up the student writing workshop schedule. Assign essays by and chart of Alicia Kennedy plus writing of four student writers. Send everyone the workshop worksheet to fill out for Alicia’s essays as well as student writers. (Student writers must have their pieces for workshop submitted to the class discord no later than 48 hours before class starts).
- Office Hours: For one-on-one questions or conversation with Cameron and Vivi.
- Discord: For continued discussion and camaraderie throughout the week. (Student writers must have their pieces for workshop submitted to the class discord no later than 48 hours before class starts).
SECTION 1
Fire Logic with Alicia Kennedy
- Lecture: What does it mean to tell a story with “fire logic?” Looking at Kennedy’s essays “On Domesticity” and “Both Joyful and Killjoy” and highlighting Kennedy’s Seventh House Mercury-in-Sagittarius in the Seventh House, among other chart highlights.
- Discussion: For astrologers: How does Alicia’s chart and writing elucidate, push back against, or expand our stereotypical conceptions of Mercury in Sagittarius or other chart configurations? For writers: How does Alicia develop a sense of voice in her essays, and which of these writerly moves do you associate with the Sagittarian themes of inspiration, big-picture thinking, a future aim, and using a past wound to inspire future healing?
- Workshop: Four student writing projects, using the workshop worksheets and guidelines.
- Administrative: Assign essay by and chart of Raechel Anne Jolie plus writing of four student writers. (Student writers must have their pieces for workshop submitted to the class discord no later than 48 hours before class starts).
- Office Hours: For one-on-one questions or conversations with Cameron and ViVi.
- Discord: For continued discussion and camaraderie throughout the week. (Student writers must have their pieces for workshop submitted to the class discord no later than 48 hours before class starts).
SECTION 2
Earth Logic with Raechel Anne Jolie
- Lecture: What does it mean to tell a story with “earth logic?” Looking at Raechel Anne Jolie’s essay “girl culture panic & the failures of feminism.” and her Mercury-in-Capricorn in the First House, among other chart highlights.
- Discussion: For astrologers: How does Raechel’s chart and writing elucidate, push back against, or expand our stereotypical conceptions of Mercury in Capricorn or other chart configurations? For writers: How do the tone, theme, and structure of Raechel’s essay work together to engage a broad audience, and which of these writerly moves do you associate with Capricornian themes of the body, the relationship between content and form, gender, time, and the success-failure axis of human experience?
- Workshop: Four student writing projects, using the workshop worksheets and guidelines.
- Administrative: Assign essay by and chart of Simone Weil plus writing of four student writers. (Student writers must have their pieces for workshop submitted to the class discord no later than 48 hours before class starts).
- Office Hours: For one-on-one questions or conversations with Cameron and ViVi.
- Discord: For continued discussion and camaraderie throughout the week. (Student writers must have their pieces for workshop submitted to the class discord no later than 48 hours before class starts).