2025 Syllabus - May Update!

Trying to learn + yearn in a sustainable and thoughtful way

5/24 Update: I feel like I’m writing a work email. I have had a few personal and health matters that have prevented me from making a bigger dent into this syllabus but I guess it is a living document and the year is not over yet! I also can’t update this post without sending an email out (I think) so, sorry. Anyway, onwards! Updates in bold.

Hi Substack! I hope by posting this here and not just keeping it in my catchall notebook will serve as some accountability for myself and perhaps as inspiration to the general public that will read this.

2024 was a weird year. I am not a *big* resolutions person, but I enjoy casting a wide net and being able to check quite a few general goals and aspirations off as the year goes on. However, we plan, God laughs: right after my birthday, I got very ill (a COVID-19 first timer!) and then within days I got an emergency surgery, followed by a physically/mentally challenging recovery. Thankfully, I am now mostly fine, but the whole ordeal (and the back-to-back nature of it) really knocked me down quite a few pegs. I also spent a majority of last year assigned to probably the most difficult and intense work project I’ll probably ever be a part of. 2024 was not a wash, but I was very much looking forward to 2025.

A bright side was engaging in two reading groups: one virtual and one local. The local group (affectionally titled “Urbanism Reading Group”) met sporadically throughout the year as we worked through Jane Jacobs’ “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” and pondered about our own dwellings (the DC-Metropolitan Area). The virtual group worked through all four Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante. We met almost weekly throughout the year in pretty short increments (we divided each book into an average of ten sections) and it encouraged not just deep reading, but a total overhaul in how I approach reading and learning. It also made evident to me how many literary gaps I have - don’t we all?! (hopefully) - especially in the world of fiction.

New books/film/etc will inevitably pop up, but I do want to make a serious effort to hit on what is on this list. Also, honestly, after working on a very challenging job, I found myself just really turning my brain off often after work and do anything but think deeply or read anything I wasn’t accountable for. Which is fine, sometimes: self-care and all of that, I suppose. However, I aspire to live a values based life and want to make time for what means a great deal to me.

I kind of arbitrarily picked a few categories for this syllabus: film, local live art, theology, literary fiction, and poetry. I am also toying with the idea of making a syllabus for everything that is not this, but we’ll see if we get to that!

FILM:

Smithsonian Iranian Film Festival - this year it is occurring during a particularly busy season of my life, but I would like to attend at least two (free!!) showings and generally watch more Iranian film. Update 5/7: I was able to go to one showing for a documentary/found footage film that will stay with me/haunt me for the foreseeable future - My Stolen Planet (2024, dir. Farahnaz Sharifi), hopefully will have more thoughts to come

The Godfather Trilogy. My excuse for this is that my parents are Not White and despite my extensive and truthfully mostly useless pop culture knowledge, I have some major film/tv gaps.

James Bond films. I have a cousin and a friend that really like JB - I will have to poll them on where to begin.

Coup 53 - documentary my fellow current/former Iran-watcher friends and colleagues couldn’t believe I hadn’t watched

LOCAL ART:

TBD based on Kennedy Center/Wolf Trap/Strathmore/etc shows and lineups. Coming soon!

Hamid Rahmanian’s Song of the North at Strathmore in Bethesda, MD - quasi-puppet and shadow show with live action actors - it is hard to explain, but it was a wild (in the best way) visual experience that made me really wonder if what I was watching was live or not. Rest assured, it was live and a feast for the eyes in its retelling of a classic “Shahnameh” story: please see this to make it make more sense lol:

Drunk Shakespeare - I think this is still happening in DC. Several friends have seen it and really enjoyed!

Les Miserables at the Kennedy Center - thank you, KC young professionals discounted tickets!

The Sound of Music at the Kennedy Center - see above!

THEOLOGY:

Theology of the Body for Beginners - There is a lot to unpack here! I appreciate that it is helping me get more comfortable with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, too.

The Language of Creation: Cosmic Symbolism in Genesis - A friend of mine kindly sent this book to me after I asked a few questions…looking forward to reading!

The Weight of Glory - CS Lewis. I am very slowly making my way through my first official Costco cardholder purchase: a CS Lewis box set. This comes particularly recommended by a trusted coworker.

The Three Voices of God and Resisting Happiness by Matthew Kelly - a contemporary Catholic writer (yes, I know, not my usual speed re: theology, lol). My fella is a fan of his and I want to see what he is all about.

Love and Responsibility - I just finished reading bell hooks’ All About Love in a maybe (?) one-off reading group led by my best friend, Steph. I think reading this will help me keep building upon my understanding of that crazy little thing called love.

LITERARY FICTION

The Chronicles of Narnia (This was my Harry Potter growing up. About a year ago, I read a few pages of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe to my neighbor’s kiddos while babysitting them before bed, and I’ve been curious to revisit them as an adult)

Anything/everything Elena Ferrante (Our reading group continues! She has a few other novels that we will tackle throughout the year) Update 5/7 - Our group read Ferrante’s “The Days of Abandonment” and “Troubling Love”; both harrowing and difficult reads for how vivid/shocking/upsetting they were. The reading group is currently working on “The Lying Life of Adults”

The Odyssey - Emily Wilson (I made this list several weeks ago before there was a lot of Discourse on Twitter about this translation. I *adore* The Odyssey, but I have not revisited it in full since I first read it in high school. This translation also came recommended by an acquaintance who went to St. Johns in Annapolis, so I trust that he Knows His Stuff)

Kristen Lavransdatte - Sigrid Undset. I am a SUCKER for a coming of age novel!!!

POETRY

I got into a great habit of reading and annotating one Mary Oliver poem each night when I was in graduate school. I dove in headfirst with her fantastic collection Devotions. My poetry practice with that book became almost a meditative/quasi-religious experience, even though I did waste one of her best quotes in a card to someone no longer in my life (“He is exactly the poem I wanted to write” from White Heron Rises Over Blackwater). Alas. Onward! I am currently revisiting my poetry practice with her collection, A Thousand Mornings. I am interested in learning more about the works of Elizabeth Bishop and Wendall Berry.