Invitation

Well done Aideen on getting us started - I thought it would be a good idea to go back to the invitation in September:

Thesis:

1- A proposition that is maintained by argument

2- A dissertation advancing an original point of view as a result of research, especially as a requirement for an academic degree.

3 - A hypothetical proposition, especially one put forth without proof.

This year we propose to engage with the subject of modernity through a series of readings. we will take as our starting point Charles baudelaire's famous statement -

"it is easier to decide that everything about the garb of an age is absolutely ugly than to devote oneself to the task of distilling from it the mysterious element of beauty that it may contain, however slight or minimal that element may be. By modernity I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and immutable"