By: Nancy Blackman on November 6, 2019
“I need to listen well so that I hear what is not said. Thuli Madonsela”[1] After having my first discovery session, I realized that I needed to pay attention to what was not being said. “It demands that we ask if there is another reasonable explanation for the events that have occurred.”[2] My mixed Korean…
By: Jer Swigart on November 4, 2019
There is a four-stage framework that my team has uncovered that sets the template for how many white, evangelical church, academic, and non-profit leaders approach local and global missions. It goes like this: Notice, Diagnose, Solve, and Walk Away. Notice: Because of the geographic and relational distance between white evangelical institutions and impacted communities, we’ve…
By: Dylan Branson on November 4, 2019
Thinking is a complex process. How we get from A to B says a lot about the ways our minds work. As was mentioned in Stuart Sim and Borin Van Loon’s book, Introducing Critical Theory, “How we arrive at value judgments, and, indeed, whether we can arrive at value judgments, are now at least as…
By: Shawn Cramer on November 4, 2019
Shane Parrish has created a thoughtful community at Farnum Street delivering content about content, thinking about thinking, learning about learning, and wisdom about wisdom. He hails the mission statement “Upgrade Your Thinking.” From a simple blog to now active online community with over 250,000 participants, Parrish curates and engages his community about epistemology and decision…
By: John Muhanji on November 4, 2019
We are living in a time of selflessness and confusion. It is coming out clear that there is nothing new under the sun but instead confusion from reigns the present. Friedman, an ordained Rabbi, describes this act of our confusion as he writes, “A society cannot evolve, no matter how much freedom is guaranteed, when…
By: Darcy Hansen on November 3, 2019
Carved into a cemetery headstone, directly under a person’s name, are the dates of their birth and death. These dates are separated by a dash. Many have waxed on poetically about the importance of that dash, for it represents the entirety of the persons life. It’s the space where they lived and breathed, rested and…
By: Chris Pollock on November 3, 2019
Introduction: Margaret Wheatley Over the last few years I have been intrigued by the thought-provoking attitude of Margaret Wheatley, best-selling author and world-renowned leader of leaders. I have read a few of her books and listened closely to her ‘unshakeable conviction that leaders (for the way forward and on behalf of the human spirit) must…
By: Simon Bulimo on November 2, 2019
DISCOVERING THE STYLES AND GENRES AS USED IN ANY WRITING Writing of books involves so many kinds of styles and with different genres. Most writers have an idea of what they want to communicate to the audience, and where possible the concepts may be applied either in the life of reader or the people the…
By: Wallace Kamau on November 2, 2019
Scott Galloway, a Professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, is a serial entrepreneur and good at his work of teaching, being named as one of the “World’s 50 best Business School Professors” by Poets & Quarts. His work in this book is outstanding and he has great understanding of business which is…
By: Steve Wingate on October 31, 2019
Some are ecstatic about the news and some… not so much: Whose Ox is Gored? Professor Stuart Sim and Van Loon write a critical, historical, and philosophical construct of social science and the tensions between to help the reader try to better understand how and why we live the way we do. They use brief…
By: Joe Castillo on October 31, 2019
Proverbs 1:7 New Living Translation (NLT) 7 Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. I have always been intrigued by the concept of wisdom. What is wisdom, and how is enquirer? Is there such a thing as evil and good wisdom? What are the differences…
By: Greg Reich on October 30, 2019
My mind is torn and spinning in many directions when it comes to this blog. I would like to say that Sim and Van Loon in their book Introducing Critical Theory a Graphic Guide brought great clarity and inspiration to me and my understanding of Critical Theory. That isn’t the case. But I did find…
By: Nancy Blackman on October 30, 2019
I would like to tell you that I was raised by feminist parents, but you decide. My father was raised by brilliantly strong women who took a stand in the Suffrage Movement. My mother, raised in a patriarchal society, succumbed to an order of survival. Daughters were meant to be married and bear sons. As…
By: Jer Swigart on October 29, 2019
Critical theory is a body of scholarship that examines how societies and cultures work. Differing from a descriptive approach, Stuart Sim and Borin Van Loon, in Introducing Critical Theory: A Graphic Guide, explain how critical theory gets beneath the surface of culture and literature to unmask the largely invisible and unquestioned ideologies that shape them…
By: Darcy Hansen on October 28, 2019
I remember for the first four years my son was in school, I would enter the parent teacher conferences with one question for the teacher: How will you get my son to read books other than graphic novels? Comic books, manga, and other forms of graphic text were his favorites. It was near impossible for…
By: Shawn Cramer on October 28, 2019
Stuart Sim and Borin Van Loon’s graphic book, Critical Theory, gave me an incredible opportunity this week to practice some of the most important innovative principles: postponing judgment and embracing being a beginner. Critical Theory and Decrustivism are blaring weak spots in my educational background, so this provided perfect grounds for training in these two…
By: Dylan Branson on October 28, 2019
Each of us views the world in a unique way. There are no two people who view every single aspect of life in the exact same way (unless of course, they’ve been brainwashed or programmed by some other form of intelligent life or magic, thus stripping them of their individuality). Unfortunately, oftentimes we don’t recognize…
By: John Muhanji on October 28, 2019
It is very encouraging and enriching to read from such a person full of leadership knowledge and I wonder where to classify him, either under the one who is full of wisdom or knowledge. His vast knowledge and leadership influence and writer of great materials in leadership reflects his great experience in leadership. Kets…
By: Nancy VanderRoest on October 27, 2019
As one of my precious Hospice patients was saying goodbye to earth recently, I told her that it was ok to let go and that God was waiting for her when she was ready. On one of the last days of her life, she looked at me in her nearly catatonic state and clearly spoke:…
By: Chris Pollock on October 27, 2019
There are things that I love to learn about. As a kid, it was nature. Like looking out across a field in the early morning at the sparkles of glistening dew on the glow of yellow, burnt grass-in-the-sun or stepping into the cool ocean, carefully over a rocky-barnacled bottom on a clear night and watching…
