- Is there a better structure for the argument?
- What would you cut from the middle of the piece?
-...
2 responses
Michael Deangave feedbackSep 12 at 3:05 a.m.
Lance Masongave feedbackSep 3 at 9:18 a.m.
Friday | September 11th, 2026
SEP 11, 2026 | 3:00 p.m. ET
9 members RSVP'd for "Essay Club: Feedback Friday"
SEP 11, 2026 | 2:29 p.m. ET
Gairik Sachdeva checked in for September 2026
Working on: "Either finally publish that old piece or start something totally new"
I've had a piece that's been in various draft forms for many months now and is probably too dated to publish, but I'll either get it across the finish line as a silent publication on my Substack or leave it forever
Wednesday | September 9th, 2026
SEP 7, 2026 | 9:26 a.m. ET
Christopher Coffman started "Access to previous essay analyses?"
Is there any way to see the EA analysis of previous essayists we've studied in the Summer Syllabus?&...
Resources
3 comments
Michael DeancommentedSep 9 at 8:04 p.m.
Lance MasoncommentedSep 8 at 12:35 p.m.
Clarke ScottcommentedSep 8 at 7:11 a.m.
SEP 9, 2026 | 8:03 p.m. ET
Michael Dean checked in for September 2026
Working on: "On separating craft & taste"
Essay Architecture is an objective/formal systems that looks only at the compositional patterns in an essay. There's value in that. But since essays are so personal, and since an essayist can really influence a reader's world view, I feel personally obligated to also understand a writer's taste/ethic/virtue/worldview, which is sometimes explicit, and sometimes hidden. I will be focusing on Joan Didion, and experience reading her this year.
Tuesday | September 8th, 2026
SEP 8, 2026 | 7:00 p.m. ET
11 members RSVP'd for "Essay Club: G.K. Chesterton"
+1
Monday | September 7th, 2026
SEP 7, 2026 | 9:35 a.m. ET
Christopher Coffman checked in for September 2026
Working on: "I'm still working on my essay about Plato's and Xenophon's versions of The Symposium and an evening at King Tut's Wa Wa Hut in NYC's East Village"
The challenge I've accepted is to write a multi-level article which includes a discussion of the two very different depictions of Socrates by two of his most famous students, Plato and Xenophon, in their own versions of The Symposium. Plato's version is considered one of the great works of philosophy and world literature. It's is also the only Platonic dialogue that prominently features a woman. It's subject is eros--and the role of a woman is not necessarily a foregone conclusion since most of the dialogue celebrates male homosexuality. I connect this discussion with a depiction of a conversation at King Tut's Wa Wa Hut in NYC's East Village on the same subject, eros. The final layer is film criticism on Bertolucci's masterpiece Last Tango in Paris, and I demonstrate how it seems to be a dramatisation of Diotima's speech to Socrates in Plato's version of The Symposium, with a clear reference to the Cyclopes episode in Homer's Odyssey as well.
For design inspiration I am thinking of Leslie Jamieson's (I think) threaded essay architecture and would really appreciate access to the course material from that session of our summer syllabus.
Working on: "Summer of Disability, Psychedelics, and Fear Experiments"
Surrender, Interdependence, and Discernment
Friday | September 4th, 2026
SEP 4, 2026 | 2:27 p.m. ET
Jillian Cardillo checked in for September 2026
Working on: "My so called mid life"
I've been stuck. Extremely stuck. This month I'm going to start from the beginning and work on an essay that has the same title as. my Substack - My So Called Mid Life. Kind of like a launching essay? I think I need to do this before I attempt anything else to help me get unstuck and actually writing.