Housekeeping, Announcements, Gratitude, Spring

Those who know me also know that I don’t keep a calendar, although sometimes I do in one form or another. It’s a defensive mechanism. The things I do forget, are simply that. The rest gets done at a regular pace without breathing too heavy down my neck.

It’s been a long, hard winter. Laura Ingalls Wilder comes to mind. There are no words to describe it properly — what it does to you. North Dakotans tell me that I got to experience a real winter. I should feel proud or or lucky or something. I tell them that I am fine with a fake one next time. Bring on the global warming.

Who is the patron saint of inauthentic ecology?

Spring is taking its sweet-ass time, but the snow is gone and the river is swollen with the casualties of the thaw. Fishing looms at a hopeful distance.

I kept my head down during the six-months of winter and the fruit is starting appear in the form of productivity: publications, gigs, and upcoming travels. I also had some misses. I’ve proven to be very good at writing unsuccessful grant proposals.

I’d like to thank Patheos — the writers, editors, tech support, and especially the readers — for being an unexpected, but essential, blessing to and for me over the cold months of winter. This has become a precious digital place. I am especially thankful to my editor, Elizabeth Scalia, for taking a chance on a crazy, not-famous guy like me.

You may have noticed the change to comments I mentioned earlier. We are now Discus-sing. I hope it encourages more and better discussions. I always read and appreciate your comments, even when I respond sharply or critically. Engagement always beats the alternative. “Arty” and “Petro” have proven particularly  frequent and fine interlocutors here. Many others, too. Thanks to you all.

In my previous post I announced  that my new book — A Primer for Philosophy and Education — has just been released. Anyone with a blog, or an interest in reviewing the book elsewhere, is welcome to contact me for a free digital or hard copy.

I don’t mention every article, chapter, and review I publish for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I am not always enthusiastic about my work. Especially the academic stuff. In the case of my Primer, this is the most secure I’ve ever felt about anything I’ve written, recorded, or made.

The long winter had something to do with it: I’ve never spend so much time and care with any other piece of prose. Tedious editing, numerous solicitations for reviews and opinions, tons of time. The morbid truth is that this little self-published booklet has given me a sense of inner peace about my life as a philosopher of education: I can die in peace. All I really needed to record is in that book. The rest is translation and clarification and, perhaps, subtraction and simplification. This is my Tractatus — as arrogant as that may sound.

Needless to say, I have to promote it as vigorously as possible. Any and all help with that is deeply appreciated. For all the “likes” and shares and tweets and e-mails and, of course, purchases, I thank you in advance.

In other news, I signed a book contract with Atropos Press this week for the publication of my next book: Education, Study, and the Human Person. That one should be out by the end of the year. I’ll be at the University of Toronto in June to give a talk about my developing critique of constructivism, and over the next year I’ll be doing a lot more traveling to promote both books and the exciting edited volume on Zizek and education that is coming out, along with a special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory on Heidegger and Education that I am co-guest editing. So if you’re in Bergen, Norway, Dayton or Cincinnati, Ohio, Albequerque, New Mexico, or Chicago, I’ll be there at some point within the next year. When I’m traveling, I am always happy to try and fit in a talk or a gig or a cup of coffee.

I’ll also start playing a few gigs around town, at Sanders restaurant May 31 and June 1 and The Empire on July 6th, and at the Gather4Good charity event in St. Paul, Minnesota, sponsored by Catholic United Financial, on June 15th.

Last, but certainly not least, we will welcome a new member into our family in August, a precious little girl — Sofia.

There is so much to be thankful for. We are overwhelmed by love, from winter to spring, from dusk till dawn, from darkness into light and back again.