When the Spirit Shows Up

An Autoethnography of Spiritual Reconciliation with the Academy

Bibliographic Data

ID8924736
AuthorsSheryl Conrad Cozart (George Mason University, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume46
Issue2
Pages250-269
Publication date2010-04-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEducational Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-1946 • E-ISSN: 1532-6993
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00131941003614929
OpenAlexW2008341135
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited26

This article is an autoethnography of the author's journey toward the reconciliation of her spirituality with the academy. She depicts the origin of her crisis in the academy, and why the climax of the crisis was critical to her reconciliation. Drawing on Cynthia Dillard's notion of an endarkened feminist epistemology, she identifies the Black Church community as the site where her spirituality is nurtured and recognizes its influence on her reconciliation with the academy. Implications of this study suggest the necessity for researchers to become engaged in public discourse about our spirituality as it relates to education, to continue to invite others to the conversation, and to recognize how the discourse might influence our decisions as researchers/educators. Notes 1. Throughout this article, I depict the Black Church as a proper noun in reverence to its unique position in the Black community. 2. I understand this phrase as a euphemism that means: Either with me or in spite of me, my God consciousness is awakened for the benefit of my transformation. Others may understand it as an epiphany or an ah hah moment. 3. The Black Church is "one in which a majority of its members are Black and its leadership (i.e., senior minister) is also Black" (CitationBillingsley and Caldwell 1991, 432). 4. I recognize that spirituality and religion are not synonymous (Citationhooks 2003), but the context in which I understand and enact my spirituality is through my experiences within the Black Church. 5. CitationLincoln and Mamiya (1990) recognized that "the Black Church institutionalizes the dialectical tensions and constant struggles that DuBois wrote about. The Black Churches are not reified social institutions, but they represent the collective double-consciousness of the African American subculture expressing itself as a religious community in the uncertain shadow of an established tradition" (16). 6. So, I use terms such as the Spirit and God in this article, even though I recognize that others may approach their spirituality differently and may use different words to speak about their spirituality. 7. CitationDillard (2006) uses the term endarkened, in contrast to the term enlightened, to express a cultural standpoint historically rooted in Black feminist thought

Autoethnography · Context (archaeology · Conversation · Epiphany · Shalom · Sociology · Spirituality · Theology · Critical and Liberation Pedagogy · Critical Race Theory in Education · Gender Studies · History · Philosophy · Theological Perspectives and Practices

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