Interest Groups

Discussion Group: The Cold War

$30 per year for Mercantile members and $40 for others

 

The Cold War: Moderated by Rich Lauf

 

Discussion Group: Rushing the Bridge of State

$30 for members; $40 for others

 

Rushing the Bridge of State: Moderated by Brendon Cull

“The web of American communications, influence and politics is so sensitive that when touched in the right way by men who know how, it clangs with instant response.  Nowhere can men gather together on their own initiative and self-election, from distances more apparently remote—and then rush the bridge of state with greater chance of success.  It is their fewness that raps at the historian’s attention.”                            

  --Theodore White, Making of the President, 1960

 

With the 2012 Campaign in full swing, armchair historians and political junkies will enjoy this five-part book discussion series covering some of the most exciting and important presidential campaigns in American history.  In this lunch-hour series, we will discuss how the key candidates and behind the scenes players were able to seize the national spotlight and define politics throughout the short history of our country.  - BC

 

 

Discussion Group: Memoir

$30 per year for Mercantile members and $40 for others

 

Memoir: Moderated by Dale P. Brown

 

Literary Journeys: Crossing the Channel

 

CROSSING THE CHANNEL: Moderated by Tony Covatta

Two countries only a few miles apart, separated by the English Channel, France and England respond in like artistic and social circumstances in ways that are similar in gross and different in particulars.  We will explore this on our Literary Journey for the  year 2012-13 as we travel in both time and space, reading four entertaining novels from the nineteenth century, two English, two French each a splendid example of the genre  that take up similar themes but treat them in  distinctively different manners. 

By popular demand and with a bow to the volume of reading before us, we will spend two sessions on each book. The itinerary is set for the Fall.  All times, Thursdays, 6-7:30pm:

In the Spring, we will return to London to read Trollope’s The Way We Live Now and finish up back in Paris with Balzac’s Lost Illusions  (dates TBA).

The fall literary journey entails two studies of youthful ambition and expectation, portraying the surprising ways in which young men from humble origins make and don’t make their way in the great world.  Dickens’ Pip has “great expectations” thrust upon him by a mysterious benefactor but finds the upper strata of English society difficult to fathom and to crack, especially in the face of female bitterness engendered by a jilted romance.  Stendhal’s worldly-wise Julien Sorel, trying to make his way in the church (the black) and the military (the red) is more successful romantically than Pip, but also has his ambitions thwarted, more because of his own character flaws than is the case with the estimable but stolid Pip.

 On our spring jaunt, we will see that Trollope’s The Way We Live Now and Balzac’s Lost Illusions have a broader canvas, focusing on the faults and failings of English and French society as well as the particular individuals caught up in it. Repelled by the greed he saw in later 19^th century England, Trollope turns aside from his more widely read Barset and Palliser chronicles to deal tellingly with London commercial life.   The Way We Live Now deals with the rise and deserved fall of Augustus Melmotte, an entrepreneur in the go-go world of the City.  Melmotte will be recognizable to anyone who lived through our recent housing and tech bubbles.  Lost Illusions traces the career of aspiring writer but faithless lover, Lucien Chardon and his Paris girlfriend, the beautiful actress and demi-mondaine Coralie.  Their tawdry, splendid, to use a word Balzac really likes,  but somehow innocent love is thwarted by the corrupt, thoroughgoing hypocrisy and selfishness of the Paris they try and fail to conquer.  

 

 

Walnut Street Poetry Society

$30 per year for Mercantile members and $40 for others

 

The Walnut Street Poetry Society was founded in 2004 and is devoted to the reading and study of poetry. WSPS meets monthly (excepting July and August) at noon. Sessions are moderated by Dr. Norman Finkelstein, poet and professor of English at Xavier University,  as well as group members.

WSPS 2012: Irish Poets and Poetry

In anticpation of Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney's visit in the Fall to deliver the 25th Niehoff Lecture, the 2012 Walnut Street Poetry Group will focus on Irish poets and Poetry.

 

 

Canon Club

$60 per year for Mercantile members/CSF subscribers and $70 for nonmembers

 

The Canon Club is devoted to Shakespeare with the specific aim of reading, and or seeing all thirty-eight of Shakespeare's plays. The group is expertly led by Dr. William McKim, emeritus professor of English at Northern Kentucky University and Cincinnati Shakespeare members, our partner in this endeavor. Canon Club meets six times a year on Wednesday evenings. A different play is discussed each session: Dr. McKim directs discussion of the literary and historical aspects of the play, while company members direct discussion of the play's production. The discussions are always lively and informative.