Promising Truths: Sincerity and Education

• In Event: 64.088 - Sheraton Roundtable 12 - Osgoode Ballroom
  In Roundtable Session: 64.088-1 - Space and Place: Embodied and Performed

Abstract

In keeping with the 2019 call for imagining approaches “that do not ignore the disagreements in our field...but work together across divides”, this essay argues a renewed consideration of sincerity opens avenues for thinking education as a good-faith practice of communicating with others in an increasingly plural world. In evoking sincerity, I do not draw upon the typical understanding but instead a more radical uptake drawn from fiction (e.g., Wallace, 2001) and literary theory (Kelly, 2016) that understands sincerity as “always contaminated by the threat of manipulating the other.” This re-theorization offers the field of education offers ways of making truths that matter, affirmatively grappling with challenges introduced by contemporary theories and rapidly evolving educational relations.

Author

• Scott Jarvie, Michigan State University