The Library
Castalia
Castalia is the Academy’s library, and the only discipline among the foundational seven that is hosted natively rather than federated. Named in tribute to the school in Hesse’s Glass Bead Game, it is the practice of study itself — the curation of materials, the authoring of syllabuses, the discussion of texts.
A Student who takes up Castalia commits to the slow accumulation of a personal library, to the gathering of others into the orbit of what one has found, and to the willingness to be taught by what one has gathered. The Library serves the whole Academy: materials and syllabuses created here can be linked from any other discipline’s page.
Founding syllabuses
Five reading lists on topics central to the Academy’s intellectual lineage. Read one in full; or take its first three items as an invitation.
Leibniz's Monadology and the Universal Characteristic
A reading list for the Fellow who wishes to understand the Academy's namesake project — the two great Leibnizian ambitions, taken together: a metaphysics in which the universe is composed of perspective-bearing simp…
7 itemsThe AcademyPlato's Republic: the Divided Line and the Cave
A focused syllabus on the two great images of Republic VI–VII: the divided line and the cave. The aim is not to settle the long-running interpretive debates but to read the central books closely, with enough comment…
7 itemsThe AcademyThe Glass Bead Game and the Vision of Castalia
A syllabus on Hesse's novel — the book from which this discipline takes its name. The aim is to read the novel slowly, then to take seriously the question of what kind of institution it imagined and whether such a t…
7 itemsThe AcademyThe Lost History of Serious Play
A reading list for the Fellow who wishes to see why this Academy treats games as serious instruments of cognition and culture — and why the European tradition once took this for granted. Begins with the theoretical…
8 itemsThe AcademyWonders, Marvels, and the Drôle de Pensée
A reading on the strange-aware imagination of seventeenth-century Europe — the cabinet of curiosities as institution, the wonder-book as genre, and the place of Leibniz's 1675 sketch within that imagination. The Aca…
8 itemsThe Academy
The Collection
Recent additions to the Library.
- ◆ book ◆
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View
Immanuel Kant, 1798
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View
BookThe Academy - ◆ book ◆
Divine Machines: Leibniz and the Sciences of Life
Justin E. H. Smith, Princeton University Press, 2011
Divine Machines: Leibniz and the Sciences of Life
BookThe Academy - ◆ book ◆
Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography
Maria Rosa Antognazza, Cambridge University Press, 2009
Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography
BookThe Academy - ◆ book ◆
Rudolf II and His World: A Study in Intellectual History
R. J. W. Evans, Clarendon Press, 1973
Rudolf II and His World: A Study in Intellectual History
BookThe Academy - ◆ book ◆
The Lure of Antiquity and the Cult of the Machine: The Kuns…
Horst Bredekamp, Markus Wiener Publishers, 1995
The Lure of Antiquity and the Cult of the Machine: The Kunstkammer and the Evolution of Nature, Art and Technology
BookThe Academy - ◆ book ◆
Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Cult…
Paula Findlen, University of California Press, 1994
Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy
BookThe Academy - ◆ book ◆
Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150–1750
Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park, Zone Books, 1998
Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150–1750
BookThe Academy - ◆ book ◆
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals
Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, MIT Press, 2003
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals
BookThe Academy - ¶ article ¶
Pente Grammai and the “Holy Line”
Charlotte Roueché, in: Board Games Studies (1998)
Pente Grammai and the “Holy Line”
ArticleThe Academy - ◆ book ◆
A History of Board-Games Other Than Chess
H. J. R. Murray, Oxford University Press, 1952
A History of Board-Games Other Than Chess
BookThe Academy - ◆ book ◆
The Oxford History of Board Games
David Parlett, Oxford University Press, 1999
The Oxford History of Board Games
BookThe Academy - ◆ book ◆
Ancient Board Games in Perspective
ed. Irving L. Finkel, British Museum Press, 2007
Ancient Board Games in Perspective
BookThe Academy - ◆ book ◆
The Philosophers’ Game: Rithmomachia in Medieval and Renais…
Ann E. Moyer, University of Michigan Press, 2001
The Philosophers’ Game: Rithmomachia in Medieval and Renaissance Europe
BookThe Academy - ◆ book ◆
Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in…
Leslie Kurke, Princeton University Press, 1999
Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece
BookThe Academy - ◆ book ◆
Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture
Johan Huizinga, 1938 (English: Beacon, 1955)
Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture
BookThe Academy
Quests in Castalia
Three quests — one per archetype — with concrete fulfilment paths in the Library.
- Magus Author a syllabus of at least five materials that traces a distinct intellectual lineage. Begin →
- Adventurer Complete a syllabus authored by another Fellow. Post a substantive reflection on its discussion thread. Find one →
- Sage Teach a concept by contributing both a new material and a substantive comment explaining it to a beginner. Contribute →