Jordan Kim

I have an English degree and I make zines, and every artist statement and gallery essay I read cites Foucault or Deleuze. I nod along, but I have never actually read them. In college I got theory secondhand, in quotes. I want to read it firsthand and decide for myself whether it is as important as everyone says.

I also want to know whether making things can be a kind of thinking. Foucault wrote about turning your life into a work of art. I want to understand what he meant, and whether it describes what I am trying to do.

The French theorists, and what they were reading. For ancient philosophy, Polt on the Theaetetus and the course on living like a philosopher, because Foucault's late work goes back to the Greeks. For modern, Kant and Nietzsche, since Foucault and Deleuze both wrote about them. Then Paul Fry's lectures on structuralism, Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, and Lacan, plus Benjamin, because of art.

For electives, Daniel W. Smith on Deleuze's politics and Rancière on cinema.

Five hours. My shifts change every week, so I will count hours, not days. If I hit five by Sunday night, that is a good week.

Lectures with headphones on the Blue Line and during closing shifts. Reading at the Harold Washington Library on my days off. Notes in a sketchbook, because I think better when I can draw diagrams. Some of them will probably become a zine.