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This paper offers a conceptual discussion of repetition and joy in the context of information and their relation to the good life.

Joy is defined as an integrative element of the good life which can be achieved through repetition. This may be surprising, given that our most ready-to-hand associations with “repetition” are negative in tenor rather than positive. Building on the work of repetition theorists Søren Kierkegaard and Gertrude Stein, we can discern three different forms of repetition: that looking backwards (e.g. rereading), that looking forwards (e.g. art-making) and that looking inwards (e.g. chiasmus). Throughout this paper, information-related examples are given and discussed as vignettes that move the conversation forward.

These examples lead to a nascent theory of why the repetition of information can spark joy and not just tedium. First, its stability and predictability that instill comfort in us. Second, its unifying force that brings us to experience wholeness. Third, its invitation to keep the repetition going through creation, further helping us feel part of the world. And finally, its paradoxicality—as strict repetition is impossible—which requires change, paving the way for satisfying surprises and delights.

Repetition is a ubiquitous and theoretically interesting phenomenon when it comes to information, and though it is implicit in some information science research, it has not yet been theorized directly. Moreover, this paper connects this issue to an emerging “positive” orientation in information studies.

THE CLASSLESS STATE, considered by many to be socially ideal, is only achieved in the world of books by fiction. Rivalling the marketing boards in zeal, librarians passionately mark down eggs to the fifth place after the decimal (641.665 13) and, deaf to the entreaties of geographers, callously separate Mother Earth from her children. Why, then, should the most individualistic form of writing enjoy a sequestered Stellen‐bosch? Is P. G. Wodehouse neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring that he must be denied a number—a privilege accorded him even in the concentration camp? Must Harriet Beecher Stowe rub shoulders with Gertrude Stein and James Janeway doss down with Jerome K. Jerome? It is hard luck for squares, who have moved in such different circles, to have to toe the party line, when, being immortal, they might reasonably expect to be given the freedom of the Heavenly City.

All aspects of time are the essence to every aspect of life. Novelists Emily Bronte, Sterne and Proust messed about with it successfully only because they never attempted to ignore it, whereas Gertrude Stein failed because she smashed and pulverised her clock and scattered its fragments. She was exercising the noble motive of trying to emancipate fiction from the tyranny of time. It cannot be done. Likewise, in the real world of profit and loss, time is the inexorable backcloth epitomising sequence and, the only way we can use it to commercial advantage, is to pack into it maximum effort coupled with a cogent rationality. Time is linear and consists of the past, present and future; to plan cogently for the future, we must refer to the past and present.

Examining the techniques of a management consulting firm comprising actors, directors, producers, writers, musicians and other artists, the article reveals through several case studies how a company of avant‐garde artists has turned the lack of conventional business training from a competitive disadvantage to a unique benefit.

The article opens with a brief overview of the company, Learning Worlds, and its historical evolution from the Gertrude Stein Repertory Theater. From interviews with clients and several case studies, the article proposes three qualities through which Learning Worlds has demonstrated its value to global corporate enterprises developing sophisticated business products. These qualities are those of communication, differentiation and the perspective of “outsider” minds. The qualities are described and the part they have played in engagements with clients is demonstrated in three case studies, with Kepner‐Tregoe, LexisNexis, and Microsoft.

Arts training increases sensitivity to audiences, and improves facility with aesthetic impact, stories and drama. The avant‐garde impulse encourages organizations to look beyond the usual solutions and habitually search for difference. And an “outsider mind” sees through assumptions and around organizational barriers to discover new paths to success. Learning Worlds' success with clients is based on a willingness to grasp business issues, but hold onto the arts advantage.

By detailing qualities uniquely developed by artists and demonstrating how their expert application has led to success in particular situations, the article demonstrates the value of occasionally stepping outside determined best practice to try a different set of strategies for reaching winning solutions.

A central issue in contemporary dance ethnography is that of writing the somatic – the attempt to articulate kinesthetic, bodily sensations that emerge in a particular culture or context, within a research format (Ness, 2008; Sklar, 2000). Emerging methods including performance making and poetic, narrative, experimental, or performative writing create space for recognition of choreographic and sensory knowledges within ethnographic research.This chapter presents a case study that illustrates what I term “movement-initiated writing”: writing that emerges through dance making, wherein the dance ethnographer is a participant observer in studio practice. This emic approach attempts to translate the felt affects of a specific world of movement into performances sited in the terrains of pages. This mode of writing draws on Roland Barthes’ (1977) notion of the “grain of the voice,” Gilles Deleuze's concept of the “minor literature” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987), Hélène Cixous’s examples of écriture feminine (Cixous, 1991), and the field of performance writing.

Artists operating under a studio model, such as Andy Warhol, have frequently been described as reducing their work to statements of authorship, indicated by the signature finally affixed to the work. By contrast, luxury goods manufacturers decry as inauthentic and counterfeit the handbags produced during off-shift hours using the same materials and craftsmanship as the authorized goods produced hours earlier. The distinction between authentic and inauthentic often turns on nothing more than a statement of authorship. Intellectual property law purports to value such statements of authenticity, but no statement has value unless it is accepted as valid by its audience, a determination that depends on shared notions of what authenticity means as well as a common understanding of what authenticity designates.