February 9, 2025

Reading Log 1

February 1st - 9th, 2025

I’d like to begin tracking what I read, in as loose a manner as possible. I’ll probably go back to provide links to these books at some points. If I stick with any of the books, I might make its own page to link to the entries.

The Limits of Critique, Introduction

I came to this book after reading Jeffrey Kripal’s The Superhumanities. While my undergrad major was English comparative lit, I’m punching above my weight with this book. I think it’s mildly enjoyable to read bewildered, unknowing of the intellectual environment, desperately trying to moor yourself to an author you recognize by name only. Something about this book appealed to my naive understanding of critique, of how I apply a “critical attitude” to Buddhist studies and what that can mean. While author Rita Felski is discussing literary studies, I think her questions apply broadly:

“Why is critique such a charismatic mode of thought? Why is it so hard to get outside its orbit? To what extent does it rely on an implicit storyline? How does it orient the reader in spatial terms? In what way does it constitute an overall intellectual mood or disposition? (3)

The Para-Academic Handbook

I’m unsure of what to make of this book. I originally came to the book after hearing an aside by Glenn Wallis in a recent episode on The Imperfect Buddha podcast (highly recommended!!). The comment was suggestive of a book regarding academics on the margins of universities. However, in the first few chapters I am unimpressed. I’m unsure what I was expecting. Maybe a guide for how one continues to engage in research–including funding!–despite not being connected to an institution, despite the garbage ruinous functioning of modern universities. About 50 pages in, there are so many references to other works and authors in this area that I don’t just feel bewildered, but mildly irritated. I will give it another 50, maybe.

“In fact, it would be misleading to think of the paraversity as existing in space at all. As academics, we all of course occupy a physical space within the university; we are each, to some extent, tethered to a discipline, a department, a curriculum, a course. However, to the extent that we are also para-academics, we are also individual little machines free to roam physically, intellectually and emotionally. Universities organize and understand themselves as linear, unidirectional tree-like hierarchies in which we are leaves attached to twigs, attached to branches, attached to a central trunk. In contrast, the paraversity takes the form of a rhizome, an underground, tangled root structure… It is the duty of the little para-academic machine, then, to connect with anything other, to plug in, to become entangled with as many people and projects as possible” (3)

Lost at School, Intro & Chapter 1

Amazon Link <–> My Notes

My supervisor recommends Ross Greene at every opportunity. Given her endorsement, I decided to pick up his book on rethinking school discipline around the skills and needs of challenging children. I sometimes don’t like titles that seek a popular audience, and I’m detecting some storytelling with which I will probably become bored. But there are also some nuggets of insight and rhetoric that I’ll certainly bring into my role as an ERMHS counselor.

“[M]ost diagnoses don’t give us any information about the cognitive skills a kid may be lacking… All too often adults get caught up in the quest for the right diagnosis, assuming that a diagnosis will help them know what to do next. The reality is that diagnoses aren’t especially useful for understanding kids with behavioral challenges or for helping adults know what to do next… Durable, effective intervention must focus both on the kid (who has skills to learn and problems to solve), and on the people in the kid’s environment (who need to understand the true nature of the kid’s difficulties and provide opportunities for the problems to be solved and the skills to be learned and practiced). Diagnoses don’t reflect that reality. They simply pathologize the child (15)

Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design

I wrote an entry the other day inspired by the exercises in the book. Trying to upgrade my qualitative knowledge for two current research projects.

Reading


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