"Some people would say that we need a ground from which to act. We need a shared collective ground for collective action. I think we need to pursue the moments of degrounding, when we're standing in two different places at once; or we don't know exactly where we're standing; or...
I'm looking for people interested in exploring the politics, ethics and activity of a relational psychology of becoming. Social Therapeutics and the Practice of Method: An Advanced Online Course with Lois Holzman and Faculty February — May 2016 Social therapeutics is a “practice of method” for human and community development. What Lois Holzman and Fred...
This week's words are from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass—a very playful practical-philosopical book containing hundreds of thinking/speaking muddles. Here's two of them. I. White Queen: Let's consider your age to begin with—how old are you? Alice: I'm seven and a half exactly. White Queen: You needn't say "exactually: I can believe it without that....
Can We Perform Our Way to Power? The ninth Performing the World (PTW) conference will be held in New York City, Friday, September 23 through Sunday, September 25, 2016. As the practice, understanding and appreciation for performance and play continue to grow, the world context in which it spreads becomes more conflicted....
This week's words to ponder are a few of the wonderfully ponderable quotes atrributed to the great Yogi Berra—baseball legend and a bona fide American wordsmith. (There are lots more in The Yogi Book.) Yogi Berra passed away September 22, 2015 at the age of 90. “I really didn’t say everything I said.” “Don’t...
On Wednesday October 21, I'll be speaking at Penn State's Center for Language Acquisition in their Invited Speaker Series. My topic? Performing Other—The Life of a Languager In his essay on the development of personality in children, Vygotsky wrote that the preschool child “can be somebody else just as easily as he...
The assumption of an internal or mental world invites alienation, loneliness, distrust, hierarchy, competition, and self-doubt; favored is a society in which people become commodities and relationships are devalued. This concept of bounded being finds its origins not within the interior of individual minds, but within co-action. It is from...
On Friday evening October 2, I’ll be creating conversation with two women I deeply admire—Sheila McNamee and Jacqueline Salit. [caption id="attachment_2787" align="alignleft" width="199"] Sheila McNamee[/caption] Sheila is a leading social constructionist scholar and educator. She’s Professor of Communication at the University of New Hampshire and a founder, board member and vice president...
Something which is only supposed to take shape at the very end of development, somehow influences the very first steps in this development. Lev Vygotsky ...
We’ve revamped the popular in-depth online course in social therapeutics: SOCIAL THERAPEUTICS & THE PRACTICE OF METHOD January 2016 begins the 7th year I’ve been leading the East Side Institute’s online certificate program in social therapeutics. In recognition of the 20th anniversary of the publication of Unscientific Psychology: A Cultural-Performatory Approach to...