A Methodology of the Heart ─ Evoking Academic and Daily Life

Education without ethics, without sentiments, without heart, is simply soulless, factual academics and nothing more. In his array of authentic essays, Ronald J. Pelias poetically evokes the spiritual aspects of life in a seemingly dispassionate field—the academy. A Methodology of the Heart presents a procession of situational compositions confronting matters such as family relationships, student/teacher communications, and general life at the university. In his comical yet candid book, Pelias depicts the emotional battle for understanding and honesty within the conventional boundaries of higher education. It introduces such subjects as autoethnography, autobiography, personal narratives, memoir, creative non-fiction, and performative writing. It is absolutely a crucial addition to all book collectors with autoethnographic or communication interests as well as to the general reader attracted to daily life and higher education.

Ronald J. Pelias is a professor of speech communication at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He is the author of Writing Performance: Poeticizing the Researcher's Body and Performance Studies: The Interpretation of Aesthetic Texts.