Over the past two years, I have created a series of videos based on the book, Qualitative Inquiry in Everyday Life by Svend Brinkmann. I posted the final part a few days ago. In this post, I want to discuss the book’s importance and who can benefit from it. Why is this book important? First, it removes the boundary between “doing research” and living a human life. The book shows that so much of what…
Milan Kundera’s novel, Life is Elsewhere, contains both a celebration and a critique of poetry (aren’t the best critiques rooted in love?). The main characteristic of poetry, which is the target of his critique, is the force of poetic imagination toward finality. The poet, like a god, doesn’t simply consider a possibility; she creates and proclaims! “Look at what I have created!” What is created presents itself as always having been there, as a fate,…
Having a good conversation about a painful topic is bittersweet. Having a good conversation about loss, for instance, has sweetness mixed with the core bitterness of the topic, and I think the sweetness comes from the truth we discover and the understanding we come to share. Even loss–and our attention to loss–can become a way of connecting with others, a way of discovering and sharing insights. A few days ago, I listened to a recent…
I have been listening to a few songs from K Republic’s 2010 album, All Those Things I Left Behind, and I have been really enjoying them, especially the first song in the album (“Speed”). What is significance to me, at this moment, about the experience of listening and loving music is that such an experience is never just about listening to one particular song, it is never just about enjoying this song, or loving just…
The following excerpts are from the article, “Disquieting experiences and conversation,” by Lívia Mathias Simão (2020), published in Theory & Psychology. Disquieting experiences, according to Simão, are inseparable from human life, to the extent that we strive to know ourselves, others, and our shared realities. We are continually acting based on what we believe and we also enact our desires to know (our questions). These actions take place against a background. It’s in the background…