Writing

I’ve done a lot of different types of writing over the years.  Here’s a sampling of the stuff that’s free to share.

“Dad and His Dynamisms.” Advanced Development Journal, Vol. 17, 2019, pp. 100-115.

In this peer-reviewed piece, I look at the forces that Kazimierz Dabrowski called dynamisms and see how they apply in the life of Keith Mannisto, a likely profoundly gifted, possibly twice-exceptional man who grew up in poverty in the mid-20th century and would eventually be my dad.  He and I were discussing Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration and how it could explain his life course at the time of his fatal heart attack in February 2016.  This piece is essentially the conversation I wish we could have gone on to have.

“Guest Blog: Libraries can help users who want to connect — and those who want to disconnect.” District Dispatch, 9 August 2011.

This is a piece I was invited to write for the American Library Association’s District Dispatch blog during the summer that I had the privilege of serving as their Google Policy Fellow.  I was a little worried that my focus on the need to disconnect would not endear me to the folks at Google, but as it happens, they became my most receptive audience, because they were suffering more than anyone from the effects of constant connection.

Restoring Contemplation: How Disconnecting Bolsters the Knowledge Economy.  OITP Perspectives, Volume 2, March 2012.

This is a longer, more in-depth version of the above.  See also the press release from the American Library Association here.  It was such a delight to get to work with ALA, with Google’s support, on finding the proper balance between connective communication technologies and…well, whatever the end of those technologies is supposed to be.  Maybe the first step is to stop and think about that last point.  But for those who want to actually develop knowledge and even wisdom, I propose some steps libraries could take to help.

Democratic Left articles.

“Should Democratic Socialists Be Democrats?” In These Times, April 20, 2017. An “Up For Debate” column, in conversation with Chris Maisano.