Rational Enquirer Issue #16

[Q1] Congratulations, Laura Mae, on becoming a new faculty member. How have the first few months been for you here?

It has truly been a pleasure! I am no longer heckled at work (yes, heckling is a key aspect of being an elected Member at Queen’s Park, and yes, some graduate studies have been done on the impact of heckling on building a welcoming environment. I do not recommend heckling in Philosophy classrooms… but I digress). 

I have been blessed with a wonderful group of students in my first class and am surrounded by such lovely colleagues. I’m having a blast!

[Q2] Prior to this, of course, you were the NDP Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for the riding of Kitchener Centre. Thought I’d ask you first about what K-W means to you as a place to live and work, and how you see the University playing its best role in the community?

It’s true that I am the former MPP for Kitchener Centre, but I was also the critic for Colleges and Universities as well as critic for Anti-Racism and Equity, and both of those portfolios connected me to UW in very interesting ways. I could see the reciprocal relationship between community and campus, and, while sad that I was unable to resolve the childcare issues that made me have to resign my seat, I found the opportunity to join UW to be rather enticing because of it. I wanted to keep giving back to communities I had previously served and I loved that UW had an Applied Philosophy stream AND a social justice program housed in Philosophy. Both are totally my jam.

[Q3] In a sense, you’re coming back to research and education, having previously received your M.Ed. and PhD prior to your career in politics. How do you see your educational background, and concrete political experience, integrating together moving forward?

Part of it is finding new ways to make my community work and activism real. I’ve learned a lot about how colonial systems operate and I hope to be able to apply some of that to what I do now. I also have an opportunity to come back to racial justice research that I had been doing prior to politics with new insights because of my time as an MPP. I have a much deeper understanding of how resistance is embedded into systems so that responding to the changes communities seek seems like a natural “no.” My hope is to trouble that by devising creative opportunities for all of us to make the world more racially just. 

[Q4] What are some subjects you’re most looking forward to teaching? I understand that, right now for example, you’re leading an advanced u-grad/graduate seminar on philosophy of education.

I was excited to ease my way back into the academic space with something that has been a foundation for me, the Philosophy of Education. Now I’m super hyped to be developing a course in the Winter semester that is cross-listed with Gender and Social Justice called “Philosophy and Racial Justice Movements.” My early research showed that many of the conversations around race and racial justice have been had outside of Philosophy, and this is an opportunity to bring these worlds together for me. I’m truly looking forward to it!

[Q5] And tell us about your research interests, publications you’re working on, and the things or issues that you’re currently reading about and paying a lot of attention to.

I actually just submitted revisions for my book which is tentatively titled: Unthinkable Laughter: (Re)Imagining Anti-Racist Education through U of T Press. That work is all about the pedagogical approach to anti-racist education taught to me through “race comics” – stand-up comedians who use their public stages to unpack race and racism. My preliminary list of comedians are Black, American men like the late Richard Pryor, Dick Gregory, and Paul Mooney. I also share some insights from a study which I called a “Comic Intervention” developed to test my theories. There, I brought race comics to school with me and used their comedy to launch a pretty interesting set of conversations about how racism operates with teacher candidates.

I’m also working on a grant proposal to build a pipeline from the high school Philosophy credit to Philosophy programs as a way to address the under-representation of Black students and faculty in the discipline. That work is based on previous research I explored in my Masters degree, but has become increasingly relevant today (The Canadian Philosophical Association’s Equity Committee, for instance, released reports about the equity gap in Philosophy in 2018 that I hope to find ways to address). The idea is to see if we incorporate discussion about Black Existentialism into the high school philosophy credit, if it will encourage Black students to enroll in the class. Research shows that many Black students want to find spaces to speak about race and the impact of racism in their schools, but are often encouraged not to speak up. This might be a way of addressing that “on-the-ground” need for Black students while also addressing the equity gap in the discipline. Plus, writing by thinkers like political philosopher Charles W. Mills, feminist and educational philosopher bell hooks, and Black existentialist and psychology philosopher Frantz Fanon, for example, would be amazing to introduce to students (and, for folks like hooks and Fanon, to the discipline too).

[Q6] A very busy transition time for you. But how do you like to spend your down-time? What are some fun hobbies and leisure activities that you get up to?

For me, it’s about family time. I’m a single mommy of 3 (ages 8, 15, and 18 with all of their birthdays early in the New Year). We do a lot of dance parties (Prince makes the rounds on that playlist as does Beyoncé because the Lindo fam-jam is, in her words, “ready for the jelly”). We also have some favorite movies that we watch and re-watch like Emperor’s New Groove (“Pull the lever, Kronk. … Wrong Lever!” #Classic) and lots of watching stand-up comedy because laughter and joy are crucial elements to how I roll both in and outside of Philosophy classrooms.