Syllabus

Week 1 ‘Beginner’s mind’: techniques for attention, concentration, and mindfulness. Philip Whalen, “Sourdough Mountain Lookout,” Joanne Kyger, “Dragon Wind of Universal Influence Whalen Says.” Selections fromDogen's Shobogenzo Zuimonki, by By Eihei Dogen, Trans. Shohaku Okumura (Wisdom Publications, 2022).Maha-suññata Sutta: The Greater Discourse on Emptiness, translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

Week 2 ‘On the being of nothing’: philosophies of nothing. Guilhem de Peiteus, “Poem on Nothing. Fragments of Parmenides. Fridugisus of Tours, On the Being of Nothing and Shadows. John Scotus Erigena, Periphyseon (excerpts). Meister Eckhart, selections from German Sermons. Jean Paul Sartre,Being and Nothingness(excerpt).

Week 3 ‘I have nothing to say and I am saying it’: boredom, saying and doing nothing, or ‘doing life’? Andy Warhol,Sleep. John Cage, “Lecture on Nothing” (Silence), 4’33.” Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street.” SelectedLifeworks of Tehching Hsieh.

Week 4 ‘Everything from nothing’: contemporary particle physics and cosmology. Rosmarie Waldrop, “Zero, or the Opening Position.” Frank Close,Nothing: A Very Short Introduction. (Meeting with the Elementary Particle Physics Group at U of Warwick.)

Week 5 ‘Literature of the unword’: writing nothing, or ‘at degree zero.’ Anne-Marie Albiach, “Winter Voyage.” Roland Barthes, “Writing and Silence.” Samuel Beckett,Waiting for Godot,Texts for Nothing, “Ping,”Three Dialogues.

Reading Week

Week 7 ‘No medium’: art of nothing. Information as Material, “NOTHING: A User’s Manual.” Lucy R. Lippard and John Chandler, “The Dematerialization of Art.” Craig Dworkin,No Medium(selections). Robert Rauschenberg, White Paintings. Ad Reinhardt, “Twelve Rules for a New Academy.” Ben Lerner, “Institute for Totaled Art” (excerpt from10:04).

Week 8 ‘Much ado about nothing’: (un)gendering the void. Shakespeare (excerpts). Emily Dickinson,Envelope Poems,eds. Marta L. Werner and Jen Bervin (‘The Gorgeous Nothings’). Anna C. Chave: “Agnes Martin: ‘Humility, the Beautiful Daughter . . . . All of Her Ways Are Empty.’” Audrey Wollen, “Beware Male Artists Making Artwork About Emptiness: Nothing Does Not Belong to You.” Lee Edelman,Bad Education: Why Queer Theory Teaches Us Nothing(excerpts).

Week 9 ‘The position of the unthought’: Black and Decolonial negativity. “Mutron,” Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell. Fred Moten, “Blackness and Nothingness (Mysticism in the Flesh)” (excerpts). “On Black Negativity, Or the Affirmation of Nothing: Jared Sexton, interviewed by Daniel Barber,”Society & Space(2017). Albert Wendt,The Book of the Black Star. “Overturning the Doctrine of Terra Nullius: The Mabo Case.” John Kinsella, “Is There an Australian Pastoral?” (excerpts)

Week 10 ‘Nothing at all’: the case for degrowth. Wallace Stevens, “The Snow Man.” Giorgos Kallis et al., “Research on Degrowth.” Andrew James Thompson, “Growth and degrowth: Dewey and self-limitation.” Stefania Barca, “The Labor(s) of Degrowth.” Marco Deriu, “Conviviality,” Sylvia Lorek, “Dematerialization,” and Chris Carlsson, “Nowtopians,” fromDegrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era, eds. Giacomo d’Alisa et al. Masanobu Fukuoka,The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming(excerpts).