Topic Director: Glenda Goodman
Associate Professor of Music
I am, you are, he/she/it is, we are, you all are, they are
Try it again from the top
Om
[Ooof!]
How to Write a Book in 15 Minutes a Day
It is unavoidable and it is a superpower. To learn and to live, we practice.
Practice is both conceptual and something you do. It is the stuff of everyday life. It does not mean the same thing to everyone. Why should it? It is a squishy category that nevertheless provides stability. Collaborative and individual, human but not just human, unrestricted geographically and culturally, the idea and practice of practice has ancient historical roots and informs modern academic disciplines’ methodologies. Practice beckons consideration from disciplinary-specific angles, and encourages reflection on our common calling as scholars, writers, and teachers.
We recognize practice all around us. It is in our faiths: how we learn the sutras, the suras, how we meditate and pray, how we sing and how we mark the cycles of the year and the seasons of life. We try to practice the right actions for this life and the next. Practice is in our pedagogy. The repetitive drilling of rote memorization provides the scaffolding for future knowledge. With practice, awkward new physical skills become second nature. Watch handwriting change from blotches to calligraphy, hear quavering notes smooth into languid musical phrases. Practice happens in demarcated spaces. Conservatories of music have “practice rooms.” Athletes show up for “practice.” Practice is the journey and practice is the destination. One studies law to practice it.
Practice alone is not always enough. Just because you practice does not mean you improve. The ephemerality of “beginner’s luck” teaches us to respect the expertise and ability that comes with long practice. Not all practices need a teleology of progressive stages toward excellence. Sometimes just showing up is enough.
The outcomes of practice shift as we age and as we move through or live with disabilities. Scholars understand increasingly well that there is no stable position from which to grasp humans’ potential for knowing, creating, and being in the world. Practice acknowledges that diversity while honoring the human drive to find pleasure, connection, and expression.
Humanities scholars stereotypically—famously, notoriously—live the life of the mind. From Aristotle to Arendt, practice as action has been cleaved from contemplation. But practice is essential to humanists’ work. It is embedded in our research and in our outputs. We engage with subjects of practice when we unpack how authors, artists, and composers made works; when we analyze the collective efforts of troupes, studios, and teams; when we seek to understand the practices by which humans enter into relationships with each other, with animals, and with machines. As we ponder iteration, habit, and creativity, we use practiced methodologies. Creating new knowledge can be difficult; communicating it to others, still more so. We try to practice communicating in spoken and written languages until we are excellent at it—or at least good enough.
Join us for a year of thought and creation about the practice of practice, about practice and joy, about the relationship between practice and change, about practice and solidarity, about practice and survival, and about practice and failure. In fellowship and in community, we will hold seminars, lectures, and performances about the topic, fueled by human curiosity and using tried-and-true humanistic practices of inquiry and critique.