Notes from a Reading Group at the End of the World

Notes from a Reading Group at the End of the World is a Twine-based interactive essay, poem, archive, and experience. It synthesizes the theory, practice, and experimentation of an autonomous research group pursuing answers to a question: “What is the Self at the End of the World?” This question is explored through the lenses of radical ecology, Queer negativity, assemblage theory, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, political theory, and more—suggesting the multiplicitous ways of thinking and constructing the Self, the End, and the World. 

What began as a research group transformed into a portal. Each week we shared texts and asked questions, and each meeting left us asking, wanting, more. Born out of tumultuous times and into a World full of intentions and hope, the network of ideas we crafted amongst ourselves grew ever-more complex, symbiotic, entwined. We sought not only to define our concepts⁠—Self, End, World⁠—but also to reinscribe them into our experience, creating new identifications, new environments, new destructions. 

This project invites its interlocutors to share in these new experiences, this new Self, this new End, this new World. It functions as a portal to whatever-is-beyond-the-now, encouraging visitors to explore and engage. In this nonlinear work, reflecting the non-hierarchical arrangement of our group, visitors are encouraged to choose their own path and aim the portal in whichever way satiates their curiosity. What will they uncover about the Self, the End, and the World?

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This publication is best viewed on a desktop browser. 

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Created by Oriana Confente, Sofia Di Gironimo, Thai Hwang-Judiesch, Désirée Nore, and Hannah Silver. Learn more about our work: endoftheworldresearch.noblogs.org