On Lingering
A Reading Group on Byung-Chul Han's "The Scent of Time"
Every second Sunday
ZK/U BerlinSiemensstr. 27, 10551, Berlin, Germany
This short series is an interlude following Reading Ghosts, before the group turns to a longer series on Arendt, Hartman, and Weil. Reading Ghosts asked what of the past persists, disrupts, or haunts the present, treating haunting itself as a method, following Avery Gordon's Ghostly Matters. Han approaches a kindred question from the opposite direction: he argues that contemporary life has entered a state of "non-time," an accelerated present so scentless that nothing lingers long enough to leave a trace. Where Reading Ghosts asked who haunts us, Han asks whether a culture that has lost duration can still be haunted by anything at all.
This reading group is hosted by John Lee. Born in the US and raised in South Korea, visual artist John Seung-Hwan Lee has lived in Berlin since 2018 and was a resident artist at ZK/U in 2023. Since 2022, he has been organizing ongoing reading groups that weave together philosophy and art—covering themes such as movement, coding, phenomenology, and existentialism. Inspired by ideas from Maurice Blanchot’s The Unavowable Community (1988), the reading group seeks a form of community grounded in an open, non-instrumental space where togetherness exists without fusion or goal through the very act of reading and reflecting alongside others.
This group welcomes anyone willing to read and think together — artists, curators, researchers, or otherwise. Sessions are held in English. If you're interested in joning, please email johnshlee1(at)gmail.com.
