UPEI Philosophy Reading Group underway for 2025–2026 academic year

The UPEI Philosophy Reading Group is starting up again for the 2025–2026 academic year. The group meets monthly at various downtown locations and is open to faculty, staff, students, and members of the general public.

This year, the group will focus on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, beginning with his book Nietzsche and Philosophy.

If you would like to be added to the mailing list for future meetings, please contact Dr. Max Schaefer at mschaefer@upei.ca.

For those looking for a window into the spirit of philosophy and the group’s upcoming activities, the following passages may do the trick:

“The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.”-Heidegger

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”-Goethe

“The most useful is the useless. But to experience the useless is the most difficult undertaking for contemporary man. Thereby, what is ‘useful’ is understood as what can be applied practically, as what serves an immediate technical purpose, as what produces some effect, and as that with which I can operate economically and productively. Yet one must look upon the useful as ‘what makes someone whole’ [das Heilsame], that is, what makes the human being at home with himself.”-Heidegger

“Philosophy does not serve the State or the Church, who have other concerns. It serves no established power. The use of philosophy is to sadden. A philosophy that saddens no one, that annoys no one, is not a philosophy. It is useful for harming stupidity, for turning stupidity into something shameful.”-Deleuze

“To affirm is not to bear, carry, or harness oneself to that which exists, but on the contrary to unburden, unharness, and set free that which lives.”-Deleuze

“We have gained reality and lost dreams. No more lounging under a tree and peering at the sky between one's big and second toes; there’s work to be done. To be efficient, one cannot be hungry and dreamy but must eat steak and keep moving.”-Robert Musil