Life lessons and a loving epistemology: A response to Julie Laible?s loving epistemology

Abstract

In this article, Colleen Capper identi es ve lessons or gifts from Julie Laible's work and research: lessons about belief and faith, lessons about our academic work, lessons about our work and faith, lessons about time, and lessons about epistemology. Capper extends the three contours of Laible's loving epistemology by rst suggesting that rather than trying to squelch problems in research, we need to conduct research that is openly problematic. Second, Capper extends Collins's three research criteria by suggesting the following. (1) Does your social theory mirror back to people their reality of their lives at a particular point in time ? (2) Does this social theory equip people to name their own pain and oppression for themselves, how they harm themselves, how they harm others, how they experience forgiveness of themselves and others and how they experience forgiveness from others? (3) Does this social theory move people to question themselves and others, not to be critical, but to seek to understand? Does this social theory move people not only to struggle but also to experience joy, freedom, and happiness? Third, Capper agrees traveling to other worlds is important, but those travels need to include the worlds of those who with or without intention seek to hurt us in direct or indirect ways, and the worlds within ourselves. Dear Julie,We miss you. I am writing in response to your last paper, your last lecture. My response to you reminds me, as Mitch Albom learned in Tuesdays with Morrie, that death ends a life, not a relationship. From your piece, I take ve lessons that I would like to remember as gifts from your relationship with all of us : lessons about belief and faith, lessons about our academic work, lessons about our work and faith, lessons about time, and lessons about epistemology. Lessons about belief and faithI appreciated how you outlined the di ¶ erences between belief and faith. Over the years, I have wrestled with my beliefs as with alligators.

Leadership as an Act of Love: Leading in Dangerous Times

“…We take note of the confluence of forces that are focused on public education broadly and the implications for preparing leaders who can be joyful even as they engage in the hard work of educating children and preparing them with the skills and heart to be resilient, loving, community members. In order to enter this creative space-or thought experiment-we propose a leadership framework that re-centers elements of liberatory education (Freire, 1970;Darder, 1998), tempered radicalism (Meyerson and Scully, 1995), and loving epistemology (Liable, 2000; see also Capper, 2000). These scholars remind us that for too long organizations-schools in particular-have forced us to decide between our work and our humanity.…”

“…Organizations employ several strategies to force a wedge not just within each of us, but among all of us. This distance, this othering of ourselves (Capper, 2000) from ourselves and from each other-or what Liable (2000) calls "institutional evil"-serves to further isolate us from the very thing that would make us stronger: recognition of each other's humanity. In contrast, these scholars urge us to resist those dissociative forces and find ways to maintain our integrity as inter-and intra-connected human beings.…”

Centering Spirituality in the Academy

“…Academics may fear that their spirituality will be ridiculed within the confines of academia as an embodied practice or discourse (Dillard et al, 2000;Tisdell, 2000;Wane, 2002). To support this argument, Capper (2000) stated, Like sexuality, the language of the spirit is difficult to bring to work and we often seek to squelch those aspects of ourselves only to have them leak out of us in offending or unhealthy ways. We are fully spiritual beings and walking into our office at the office in the university does not change that.…”