Jay Matthews

It is within this paradigmatic drama that learning is realised. Invariably, such experience also raises questions about how learning comes to be understood and communicated. These epistemological questions are similar whether the experience is considered from the viewpoint of ‘dancer’ or ‘learner’. ‘What does it feel like?’ ‘How do you understand... See more

In the future—not the distant future, but ten years, five—people will remember the internet as a brief dumb enthusiasm, like phrenology or the dirigible. They might still use computer networks to send an email or manage their bank accounts, but those networks will not be where culture or politics happens. The idea of spending _all day online_ will... See more

“All that is known. It proves nothing; its demonstrative value is destroyed by the habit of thinking in terms of advantages and disadvantages, the most evil of all ways of looking at life. “Everything has its advantages and disadvantages.” Once that is said, the unbearable becomes bearable—a mere disadvantage, and what after all is a disadvantage... See more

Writing, art, creation: this is smithwork. You set your fire; you use your bellows, your pen, your paper, to heat it to the right temperature. You set your base metal in the flames, heat it until it is white. Then you begin your transformation.

And that purpose was to communalize trauma, to create the conditions where — the word “amphitheater” in Greek means “the place where we go to see in both directions.” “Amphi-” — I see you, you see me; both directions. “Theatron” — the seeing place. So we go to the amphitheater in the fifth century, B.C., to see each other, to see ourselves; to see... See more

I think we need to, in this time, we need to reckon with the fact that in each and every single one of our bodies holds living memory of our ancestors coming into agreements with plants and animals, and those agreements are those, um, covenants that our ancestors, you know, wove themselves into with plants is that they said, "we'll give up a little... See more

On anxiety or curiosity as responses to a partner's 'other'-ness

I mean, faced with the unknown of our partners, we can either be anxious — and this is true with the unknown of life. We can be anxious, we can want to close the gap, we can want to seek the familiar in that space, or we can leave that space open and respond

to it with curiosity. And

... See more

Psychological-mindedness (the propensity to take responsibility for one’s problems and to look within oneself for the solutions) is considered by many to be an important criterion for analyzability. Historically, these criteria have operated to exclude many who might otherwise have seemed to be potential beneficiaries of psychoanalytic treatment.... See more