Katabasis Reading Challenge: 

As an HCI scholar, online cultural practices play a substantial role in how I perceive the world today. I find these cultural practices as crucial and valuable vehicles to understand how society responds to different upheavals, be it economic, political, or cultural. Therefore, I was intrigued by the Katabasis reading challenge that went viral in recent weeks. 

Katabasis is the upcoming novel by R.F. Kuang (side note, I loved her Poppy War Trilogy!). It dives into the story of two graduate students who must descend into hell to save their advisor. Most of the books in the reading challenge delve into the experience of descending into the underworld (which is what the term Katabasis refers to). 

Hearing the plot of the story and our current political climate, it doesn't surprise me that this reading challenge went viral. I was curious to be a part of this online phenomenon and record my own reflections of the books in the challenge. Both as a way to cope during this period of unrest in academia around the world, and as a tool to reflect on how classical literature is more relevant than ever before.  Since Katabasis releases in August, I am hoping I'll spend less time worried about the future and more time reflecting about the past. 

The books in the challenge are: 

• Babel by R.F. Kuang 

• Inferno or the Diving Comedy by Dante 

• The Aeneid by Virgil 

• The Odyssey + The Illiad by Homer 

• Metamorphoses by Ovid 

• The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot

• No Exit by Sartre 

• God is dead. God Remains Dead. We have Killed God. by Nietzche

• The Epic of Gilgamesh

• The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus

• Theban Plays by Sophocles 

• The Golden Ass by Apuleius

• Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky

• Piranesi + Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell by Susanna Clarke

• The Secret History by Donna Tart 

• Alice's Adventure in Wonderland by Lewis