Taking Yourself Seriously: A Fieldbook of Processes of Research and Engagement

A book of tools and processes to help readers in all fields develop as researchers, writers, workshop facilitators, and agents of change

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On transdisciplinarity

Because transdisciplinarity is radical, in the sense that it goes to the roots of knowledge, and questions our ways of thinking and our construction and organization of knowledge, it requires a discipline of self-inquiry that integrates the knower in the process of knowing.

 
Nicolescu, B. (ed.) (2008) Transdisciplinarity: Theory and Practice. Hampton Press.

Two extensions:

The form of Taking Yourself Seriously

The forms (Levine 2015) of Taking Yourself Seriously (TYS) are ones in which the students and participants bring themselves into to grow and develop so that they leave having more self, i.e., more tools in their toolbox, to bring into the forms of work and life outside TYS. The students/participants take up/in the tools by experiencing their use and practicing them in projects of research and engagement, including engagement with themselves, that is, taking themselves seriously.

Manifesto

A synthesis of elements from a course or workshop, selected and organized so as to inspire as well as inform your efforts in extending the course/workshop topic further. An excerpt from an example, then some elaboration:

Plan for Practice

A plan with two dimensions:
How you will put into practice in your work, community and other settings the tools, processes, and knowledge being learned
How and with whom you will practice putting these into practice. Given that things are surely not going to work out perfectly the very first time, include how you will take stock of how well your Plan is working so as to adjust and improve.

What is a platform?

Transcript of this 18-minute recording from 2015, which delves further into the concept of a platform as mentioned in a 2015 blogpost on developing as a critical thinker.

Novels with a “capacity to make me uncomfortable, to unnerve or challenge or confuse me”

Last week, during the day when I should’ve been working and in the wee hours when I was sleepless due to jet lag persisting after my return from a month in Australia, I feasted on Plum Rains and then The Spanish Bow by Andromeda Romano-Lax. I’m now suffering withdrawal–having read Detour and Behave a year or so ago, I have no more of her novels to look ahead to. Anyway, let me use this blog post to convey a few notes of appreciation.

Taking Yourself Seriously: New edition is taking shape

Taking Yourself Seriously: New edition is taking shape. New section and corresponding tools on:

Helping make sense of inevitable changes over the life course

“If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans”—Not!

This discussion board invites participants to contribute
a) examples of advice about how to make sense of inevitable changes over the life course and/or
b) reflect on whether that advice could apply to them and what the implications would be.

Create Change Co-Coaching (draft publicity material for comments)

Create Change Co-Coaching
(a project of the The Pumping Station)
Participate with 6-8 others in a Studio for a year to become certified as a Co-Coach.