Would you like to read and discuss the work of polymathic and prolific genius Samuel R. Delany in an informal book club setting? This summer Human Resources Los Angeles [HRLA] is hosting up a free book club. Our first meeting will be at Pho 87 in Chinatown [1019 N Broadway, LA CA 90012], next door to HRLA gallery.

Anyone interested in reading about race, speculation, sex, post-structuralism, memoir, fantasy, S&M, feminism, writing, queerness, class, slave rebellion, science fiction, myth, and/or fabulation is welcome to join.

Our first meeting we will discuss an excerpt from Delany’s book Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999), the book that launched the Sexual Cultures book series from NYU press (founding editors José Esteban Muñoz and Ann Pellegrini). You can download the PDF here. The book discusses the effects of gentrification on the queer interzones of cruising in Manhattan.

Read the writer’s preface, 1-19, 57-88, and 111-119. Come with thoughts and questions for each other — any and all questions welcome.

Yes, this is last minute — but we thought it’d be extra special to kick this project off during the exhibition of Tyler Matthew Oyer’s installation Conquest of the University or When Queens Collide. Tyler’s project celebrates Charles Ludlum’s Ludlum’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company — this kind of experimental work is part of Delany’s universe!

Extra credit reading: Junot Diaz interview with Samuel Delany in the Boston Review, “Radicalism Begins in the Body.”