On Thursday, June 18th at 7pm, Callie’s will host a public reading and conversation with writer-in-residence Dakotah Weeks Murphree, facilitated by artist and archivist Kat Schneider.

Dakotah will read excerpts from the manuscript she has been developing at Callie’s, titled Teacher Fantasy. The debut novel is a highly fictionalized portrait of Sylvia Bataille. Sylvia began as a film actress before marrying the writer and philosopher Georges Bataille. She abandoned her film career and eventually left her marriage with Bataille for the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.

Part psychic portrait, part exploration of desire and agency, Teacher Fantasy uses the historical figure of Sylvia to examine relationships in which one person occupies the role of teacher, mentor, or muse. Drawing on Dakotah’s ongoing research into psychoanalysis, the book investigates intellectual intimacy, the transmission of ideas, and the fantasy that someone else possesses the knowledge that will tell us how to live.

Dakotah is a writer interested in archetypes and their interplay with taboo, power, and voyeurism. While living in New York City, she co-founded the collective Chapter 4, which created site-specific installations and happenings spurred by female friendship and the poetry of everyday life. She is currently a scholar of philosophy at the European Graduate School, focusing on Lacan.

The conversation will be led by Kat Schneider, a Berlin-based artist and archivist. She is the head conspiratrice of Brutal Book Club, a reading group for transgressive literature active since 2023.