Introduction

In the autumn of 2005, Jill wrote an essay arguing that the stories in “Dubliners” functioned as dialogical tools for teaching, like parables (Shashaty 2010). Vicki asked Jill to collaborate with her on the introduction to this collection of essays, since the collection was built around the idea of dialogue. Vicki wanted to intertwine Jill’s argument about parables as a literary genre with work she was doing on the dialogical teachings of Paulo Freire and Socrates. Our collaboration was based on a shared interest in education through dialogue, and we enjoyed being able to do what Freire recommends: to act as a student-teacher team working together to solve a common problem.