I am mostly thinking about being a practitioner.

I'm already behind in keeping a blog and strangely since I've started the PhD I have actually done less writing than I normally do even though I have tried to make a commitment to writing everyday.

Hows your PhD going people keep asking and as I've made it my absolute aim to enjoy my 3 years I say " Really well, I'm just in that moment between absolute terror and feeling completely lost  its a joke of course but also as with any good joke holds an element of truth.

After Harry did his very good introduction to research methods on Tuesday I asked him what single book or book chapter would he advise we read on the train on the way home.  It was a slightly cheeky question I suppose as his talked ranged across 200 years of research history with a Tiny bit of Greek philosophy as a backdrop.  He popped the reading list up which was around six books that sounded rather long and said something like - "some of these will start to give you an introduction to the field."

Within Geoff's reading he gave me there was an interesting chapter that explained who Deleuze and Guattari who against - why they didn't like Hegal.  In Massumi's introduction to his translation of 1000 Plateaus he suggests that Deleurze conceived the history of Philosophy as "a kind of ass fuck" he goes on to say he imagined approaching an author from behind and giving him a child that would indeed be his but would nonetheless be monstrous - Hegal is absent being too despicable to merit even a mutant offspring. " I like the idea of how we define ourselves by who we are against as much as what we are for - but of course we don't really do binaries.

One bonfire night years ago I was in a friends garden and a six year old came up to me and said - " What do you believe in God or Ghosts? "  I think I said neither and she walked off disappointed, now I'd probably say both.

I am just about to go to a conference about socially engaged practice and I want to write something practical to remind me where I've got to and I only have time to do a list now as I spent to long writing about Deleurze ass fucking the history of philosophy but it felt important as it holds a certain truth of the way I'm feeling about some of the reading I'm doing.

1. Big take home at the moment is the more I get into the reading the more I think of myself as a practitioner - it feels fundamental to how I identify myself and I can't leave it  behind.  I am reading everything and thinking " Interesting idea but what does it do? "  I found this nice quote From Bruce Archer in an Article Education for Participation by Eileen Evens.

".....One works best from practice towards theory and not the other way around;that one works best from the classroom to the seminar room and not the other way around;that one works best from the teacher to the investigator and not the other way around; that one seeks leadership from the field and not the center; the action must precede speculation; and that it is from the particular that we arrive at the general and not the other way around"

In the context of my reading - mainly Massumi and Manning as Kate has encouraged me to immerse myself in books this quote feels a little old fashioned yet it is also the common sense position I inhabit as a practitioner.  It is a core belief that perhaps I need to as Deleuze would say as fuck and produce my own mutant offspring.

2.  I am learning to inhabit books but it is slow and hard and the books are complex - I am leaning to be more generous and less resistant.  I want to be a cross between John Berger and Colin Ward I want to learn to write like them - I know this is arrogant but if I feel it as an aspiration it feels like a good thing to aspire to.

3.  I love been part of ESRI I feel like I have been welcomed into a space and a field and I feel at home their . Its made me realise that I don't feel welcome or relevant within the art world - perhaps because I'm shit at drawing.

4. New materialism relies a lot of radical pragmatism Whitehead and Dewey come up lots - I wonder if its because it's American - the Uk and Europe critical theory draws more on the Frankfurt group - I think this may be to do with a fear of relativism - I want to talk to Geoff about this he will know and point to some reading but It will jump me away from Massumni and manning which I'm trying to inhabit.  That is the trick of reading this philosophy you need to Ass fuck it and produce your own mutant children - that's probably  the way to inhabit it like the people you love.

5. I have no idea what will go into my RD1 I move further away from knowing everyday and less able to articulate even a sentence - I think this is a good thing.

6. Lot of the theories that seem to be knew feel like they skirt around dialectics and the idea of what is total or totalising.  The singularity , the event, the assemblage or from now as Manning correctly says the agencement  I'm sure Massumi probably told her that in bed - sorry love when I translated that as assemblage I should of probably stuck to agencement its confused a lot of people.  This idea of the indivisible whole that cannot be reduced is critical as a sate of mind to enter into the literature but in a way it also creates a binary between people and methods and we all know the dangers of totalising ideas - that's why Hegal wasn't even allowed a mutant offspring.

Oh and I'm actually a practitioner!