Reflecting on the title of the book, Psychology as the Science of Human Being: The Yokohama Manifesto, it occurred to me that we can read the title in two different ways. First, psychology can be, and should be, a science that is responsive to human beings, to the messiness and ambiguities of our reality. According to this first meaning, we should be mindful that the target of psychological science, and practice it in a way…
I was one of the participants at a 3+ hour workshop on Francois Laruelle held by Incite Seminars. The workshop was facilitated by Glenn Wallis who opened the session with a personal note about how he had first encountered Laruelle’s work and how that encounter has influenced his own projects, most notably (thus far) his book, The Critique of Western Buddhism. Glenn’s presentation and the general atmosphere of the workshop–co-created by the wonderful participants–were centered…
In a recent trip to the nearby bookstore, I bought two books. One of them is Terry Eagleton’s How to Read Literature and the other is Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. I just decided to right-click and to add “Lamott” to my browser’s dictionary, not just because I was irritated to see it underlined as a possible typo, but also because of how much I loved her and her…
During the year I spent in Leiden (2015-16) I did almost nothing that would count as academic productivity. In fact I cannot think of any other postdoctoral researcher, who I have met or have heard of, less productive than me during that year. It wasn’t that I didn’t have ideas. I had many ideas, enough to keep a team of 4-5 students busy. But I no longer identified with the ideas. The ideas were coming…
If you’re interested in the topic of procrastination and want to read a carefully put-together collection of diverse perspectives on the topic, I’d recommend this book by Andrew Santella. It is clear that Santella himself has genuine interest in this topic. Reading the book, we could also see how much fun he has had writing it, which in turn makes the book fun to read. He isn’t satisfied with simplistic “theories” or “remedies” of procrastination,…