In our upcoming July gathering, we will host our first Essay Club, an open-syllabus evening where participants bring and present texts of their own curation. To understand the potential of this open format, it is worth looking at the history of London coffeehouses in the late seventeenth century and how shared, extemporaneous curation builds collective intelligence.
During the Restoration, London coffeehouses became known as "Penny Universities." For the price of a penny, anyone could enter, buy a cup of coffee, and sit at a communal table covered in pamphlets, newsletters, and essays. There was no formal agenda or hierarchy; the discussion was driven entirely by whatever texts the patrons brought in and read aloud. A merchant, a scientist, and a poet might sit together, arguing over a new pamphlet on metallurgy or a draft of a political satire. These spaces bypassed the rigid, academic silos of Oxford and Cambridge, creating a highly fertile environment for "scenius"—the collective intelligence of a scene that catalyzes individual breakthroughs. The Royal Society itself was born out of these coffeehouse debates.
The open-syllabus coffeehouse model stands in sharp contrast to modern, curated media consumption. Today, we consume content in isolation, guided by private algorithms designed to confirm our biases and keep us scrolling. We have outsourced our curation to software. The Essay Club is a deliberate return to the coffeehouse table. By requiring each participant to act as a physical curator—bringing a text, sharing it, and leading a short discussion—we reintroduce the necessary friction of human diversity. The curriculum is not designed for us; it is built in real-time by the seriousness of the room.
This July, we will test whether a small group of formidable friends, gathering around a table of shared texts, can build a scene in Denver. We will celebrate the labor of active preparation, using the room to spark conversations that would never survive the isolation of a screen.