<p>Intensive is a philosophy and critical theory student reading group at the University of Pennsylvania. We aim to slow down what our busy lives as scholars and educators increasingly necessitate: namely, an all-too-rapid intake of texts. Between classes, teaching, research, writing, and trying to keep up some semblance of a life outside academia, Penn scholars often have no choice but to race through wide bodies of work, to gut books instead of carefully parsing them, and, in short, to make the experience of reading all too brief. <br><br>To counter this, the Intensive Reading Group will choose one work of critical theory or philosophy at the beginning of each semester and spend an hour and a half each week carefully working through it. These weekly readings will not exceed either fifty pages or a single book chapter. Intensive encourages a spirit of exploration in place of an acceptance of inherited knowledge. It intends to look with fresh eyes at texts we think we have read (or even say we have) and engage with them on their own terms. Intensive demands no prior knowledge of philosophy, critical theory, or literary studies; rather it hopes to recover some of the freedoms that a lack of knowledge can afford. Intensive will admit, first and foremost, that we do not know these texts well enough. So let’s read them.</p>

Intensive Reading Group

Children of Intensive Reading Group

Parents of Intensive Reading Group