IDBC Collective Reading Map
Here’s how we’re reading Maria Pinto’s “Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless"
In Cohort 1, we developed the IDBC Collective Reading Map for Dismantling the Master’s Clock: On Race, Space, and Time, by Rasheedah Phillips. In choosing a book about the colonial history and weaponization of time against Black bodies, we thought it especially important to take a non-linear approach to reading it. At the Grounding Session, which is the very first session our cohort has, we read brief descriptions of each essay that our founder, Austen Smith, wrote alongside the AK Press Reading and Discussion Guide for Dismantling. Then we deconstructed the table of contents, ranking each essay by desire, urgency, and curiosity. This process resulted in a reconfigured table of contents, unique to the needs of the cohort and reflecting the quantum entanglements explored in the book.
Some books must be read linearly because the context is dispersed linearly, each page relying on the ones before it. This intuitive mapping practice is most beneficial when used with books that can be read in any order. Dismantling is one such book, and it was pure luck that Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless is that kind of book, too. Its essays are accompanied by poetic subtitles that seamlessly feed into our intuitive mapping process.
IDBC Cohort 2 Reading Map
This is the order we’ll be reading Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless. Each essay will take approximately 1-2 weeks and will be discussed during our live sessions. We are currently reading essay #2, In Search of Undescribed Species (All We Don’t Know). We invite you to read at your own pace alongside our reading map. If you’d like to access the Reading Companion, which includes guided reflections and practices related to each essay, join IDBC Cohort 2 today!
Collective Reading Map
In Search of Schizophyllum commune (The Charismatic Mushroom)
In Search of Undescribed Species (All We Don’t Know)
In Search of Amanita phalloides (The Death Cap)
In Search of Tuber melanosporum (The Black Winter Truffle)
In Search of Psilocybe Species (The Magic Mushroom)
In Search of Ophiocordyceps unilateralis (The Zombie-Ant Fungus)
In Search of Tricholoma magnivelare (The Mushroom at the End of the World)
In Search of Fomes excavatus (The Tinder Fungus)
In Search of Junjo (The Jamaican Mushroom)
