I'd like to take a moment this week to introduce the Vine & Fig Reading Club!
Instead of the usual weekly musings you can see here on Wednesdays, I'd like to take a moment this week to introduce the Vine & Fig Reading Club! It's a monthly group call in which members of the Vine & Fig community come together to read various kinds of 'texts'.
I use the word 'text' to say that it isn't just groups of letters that forms sentences that we can read. From movies to albums, and from photographs to dance performances: we can read anything we like! It's not just fun to look at different types of media this way, it's also fruitful: so many of the lessons we can learn are hidden in stories that don't exist in books.
So, what's this club going to be about, then?
Everything
The Reading Club is going to visit many different nooks and crannies. It's not a space that only focuses on why the Church should accept queer people.
It's embraces the fringes
Despite what many people think, the queer community, much like the world outside of it, is often narrowed down to the stories and lives of cisgendered, homosexual, affluent white men. The Reading Club is the opposite. By honouring a wide variety of stories, we can cultivate new and better understandings.
It's inclusive and proactively antiracist
The idea for the Reading Club was born on the Wednesday after #BlackoutTuesday. Facilitating this space for the Vine & Fig community is my way of making sure that our support for people who are suffering does not begin and end on our Instagram and Twitter profiles. It can be painfully difficult for people who do not belong to an ethnic minority to look critically at themselves and the world. The Reading Club is going to help you with that.
It loves silly archives
Silly archives are the opposite of 'high culture'. Rather than assume that low-culture, silly, funny, and childish things cannot teach us anything profound, the Reading Club embraces them fully.
I'm in! What's next?
I'm currently working on a curriculum to get us started with our first season. If you'd like to join me for these virtual meetups, stay tuned on Slack, where I'll post the details. If you'd like to contribute to the Reading Club, or if you have amazing ideas for texts that you'd like to read with us, you can reach me on Slack or send an email to zinzy [@] vineandfig [.] co.