DURATIONS: Meredith Graves & Offal Literary Salon present Philosophy and Magic with Simon Critchley, Elvia Wilk, Joseph Earl Thomas, Sasha Ravitch

Magic, like philosophy, can be perfidious: it hides in plain sight, it re-writes systems of thinking, and it redesigns ways of being. Philosophy and the Occult Sciences are as much about concealing as they are revealing, and knowing when to do which. The true seat of power within any system is occupied by those individuals tasked with deciding who gets to see in the dark, who has access to the hidden tongues, what lies in wait on the Otherside – and perhaps most of all, by those who understand the two disciplines as perpetual strange bedfellows, at origin a monstrous two-headed birth still fighting any attempt at division well into the 21st century. This year at Durations, in a special clandestine meeting of the Offal Salon, we aim to place a candle in front of a trick scrying mirror: four luminous writers from across genres and disciplinary specialties, whose work simultaneously conceals and reveals the inner workings [in/of] [the/a] machine, whether mechanical or human, with or without organs. Join us on the evening of Friday November 13th for a series of individual readings followed by spirited conversation, and help us dissolve the lines between philosophy and magic, fiction and non-, meat and spirit. Featuring: Simon Critchley: Simon Critchley is the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at The New School for Social Research and a Director of the Onassis Foundation. His work engages in many areas: continental philosophy, philosophy and literature, psychoanalysis, ethics, and political theory, among others. He has written over twenty books, including studies of Greek tragedy, David Bowie, football, suicide, Shakespeare, how philosophers die, and a novella. As co-editor of The Stone at the New York Times, Critchley showed that philosophy plays a vital role in the public realm. Additional information can be found at his personal website, simon-critchley.com. Elvia Wilk: Elvia Wilk is the author of the novels Oval and A Diagnosis and the essay collection Death by Landscape. Her fiction, essays, and criticism appear in publications like Bookforum, Frieze, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic, The Nation, WIRED, n+1, Granta, Conjunctions, BOMB, 4Columns, The Paris Review, and e-flux journal, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Berggruen Institute, the Remarque Institute, Yaddo, the Hawthornden Foundation, Artlab, and La Becque, and she teaches in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College. Joseph Earl Thomas: Joseph Earl Thomas is the author of Sink, A Memoir (Grand Central Publishing, 2023), longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Writing Prize; the novel God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer (Grand Central Publishing, 2024), longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Literary Excellence, finalist for the LA Times Art Seidenbaum Award, winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize; and the forthcoming story collection Leviathan Beach (Penguin Random House, 2027). His prose and poetry has been published or is forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, The Verge, Harper’s, Virginia Quarterly Review, Vanity Fair, The Yale Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Dilettante Army. His honors include the 2020 Chautauqua Janus Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Fellowship in Writing and Publishing, and fellowships from Kimbilio, VONA, Tin House and Bread Loaf. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame’s MFA program in prose, he earned his PhD in English from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the writing faculty at Sarah Lawrence College as well as low residency MFA programs at Holy Family and Randolph Colleges, and teaches courses in Black Studies, Poetics, Video Games, Queer Theory and more at The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Sasha Ravitch: Sasha Ravitch presents internationally at conferences, teaches classes and workshops, consults globally on witchcraft and occulture, and writes fiction, theory, and creative non-fiction. Having pioneered a field of witchcraft informed by cosmic horror and posthumanist and post-Lacanian critical theory, the resultant non-fiction manuscript is forthcoming with Revelore Press. She’s been published by Brooklyn Rail, Weirdpunk Books, Strange Horizons, hex literary, and more, and is a former Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity residency recipient, and McCormack Writing Center (formerly Tin House) Oregon Summer Workshop alum. Ravitch is the co-founder and EIC for antilogos press, founder and curator of offal literary salon salon, and her current hyperfixation is the Semiotic Realm and the Bakhtin-Kristevan concept of “the carnival” within the context of fandom internet thirdspaces. DURATIONS Festival is a week-long, multi-disciplinary exploration of sound and connection. Now in its fifth iteration, the festival’s programming is its most robust yet, with seven days of music, talks, audiovisual work taking place between Public Records, Pioneer Works, Roulette, and Whitney Museum of American Art. - Public Records aims to provide a safer space. We reject all forms of discrimination, including racism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, sexism, and other aggressive behavior. Consent is paramount. Please exist with respect for yourself and those around you. Anyone found in violation of our rules or safer space policy will be removed from the venue. To share feedback about an incident, please email [email protected] or alert a member of our team. Tickets may be available at the door based on capacity. A ticket does not guarantee entry; Public Records reserves the right to deny entry to guests that appear intoxicated or do not meet the dress code. All large bags and coats must be checked. Doors close one hour before end time.