A 2023 SPE Outstanding Book Honorable Mention Generative Knowing explores the mystery of learning from the unknown in ways that reveal that learning is a dynamic phenomenon, encompassing both personal and societal contexts. Dewey defines learning in terms of experience, reflection, continuity, and interactivity. When learning happens, it eventually solidifies into reliable truths that become a shortcut for taking action or making decisions―thus a habit of learning is formed and becomes rigid. Generative knowing is an emerging theory of adult learning that seeks the not-yet-foreknown potential that waits to be uncovered in the richness of experience. The book delivers vignettes of different lived experiences of being and becoming, signaling multiple ways in which a person shapes and transcends traditional conceptions of self-other binary activating the power to respond to the ongoing complex evolution of self and society. Generative Knowing seeks to accomplish four goals: to offer a unique exploration of learning, positioned as response-ability that illuminates the relatedness of learning and complex, ambiguous, unsolvable challenges that are recognizable in society as social challenges (i.e. forced migration) - to present and distinguish an emerging theory of adult learning, generative knowing. Generative knowing emerged as a distinct learning disposition at the intersections of personal meaning making capacity (developmental psychology) encountering the characteristics of rising ambiguity (complexity sciences) and the lived experience of undergoing experience - to make visible and help others make the connections between generative knowing at a personal level and the complex, ambiguous unsolvable challenges in today’s society, and - to provide illustrations of what generative knowing entails, how it shapes personal and societal transformation and how that may support educators, facilitator activists and change activists to make space for generative knowing when complex challenges call for both personal and societal transformations. Adult education as a field of practice is presently grappling with how adults learn in a world being recomposed by a global pandemic. Generative knowing―defined as ways of being and becoming that creatively activate potential―restores many rhythms of learning, helping readers gain fresh perspectives on how learning emerges from the unknown. The vital and personal stories in this book guide readers to walk in the territory of the unknown and to pay attention to the sensations of entanglements of self with multiple societal forces as a new way of learning. Perfect for courses such as: Adult Learning Theory │ Adult Learning Theory & Praxis │ Adult Development │ Transformative Learning │ Phenomenology │ Narrative Inquiry │ New Materialism │ Creative Research Methodologies "Drawing on lived personal experience, Nicolaides (Univ. of Georgia) presents a new paradigm for a transformational learning approach in adult learning theory. While citing many adult learning theories, theorists, and writers, she relies primarily on John Dewey, Jack Mezirow, and Gilles Deleuze. As director of the International Transformative Learning Association, Nicolaides is highly qualified to write on this topic, and her approach is very appropriate for the current adult learning environment. She has produced an important contribution to present-day adult learning theory and practice, appropriate for the fast and ever-changing adult learning environment. Most chapters contain a reference section, and the end of the book has a very useful index. This well-written and very lucid book will benefit scholars working on adult learning, adult education, and the philosophy of adult learning, as it speaks to the future of adult learning theory and practice. Graduate students in these areas will especially benefit from reading this short book's very direct, useful, and helpful insights. Ultimately, this is a valuable study for those involved in adult learning theory analysis and development." -- W. C. Hine, emeritus, Eastern Illinois University for CHOICE, May 2023, Vol. 60, No. 9 “With cascading words, images, stories and meanings, and courageous vulnerability, Nicolaides weaves a phenomenological and DeLeuzian portrait of generative knowing that is both generative and phenomenal. The artistic use of language and story to look at how we come to know in the face of unprecedented complexity and ambiguity brings poetry to scholarship. Scholars of adult learning will recognize the power of this contribution to evolving adult learning theory. This book will be a classic among adult learning scholars.” -- Karen E. Watkins, Professor Learning, Leadership and Organizational Development, The University of Georgia “Overwhelmed and frequently shocked by the complexity, turbulence, and velocity of our lived experience today, haven’t we all stopped to wonder, how will we find a constructive way forward? Nico