The Teacher's Body

A Special Issue of The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural
Studies

guest edited by Leda M. Cooks and Kathleen LeBesco

Call for Papers

While much critical attention has been given to the disciplinary moves
which have created the student body in education, the significance of
teachers' bodies remains central to the production of knowledge.
Among other things, the teacher historically has represented the
division between public (institutional) knowledge and private mind,
between the Kantian idealized mind and the imperfections of the body.
Western and Christian philosophy from the synoptic Gospels to Augustine
to Locke, Kant and Marx (among others) has served to uphold the role of
the teacher as the conduit through which knowledge is transferred to the
student. In this view, the extent to which the teacher's body is
an imperfection in the system--an impediment to the flow of
information to the mind of the student--determines the true
"objectivity" of learning. This debate over the place
and role of the body in meaning making, we argue, was and is a central
problematic for education and learning.

For this special edition we seek articles that examine this problematic
through the signification of the teacher's body and the spaces
in which teachers perform their identities. Teaching as performance
implies an audience even as that audience implies certain types of
(expected) performances. We are looking for smart, lively essays that
examine the construction of the teacher's body inside and
outside the spaces of schooling and the meanings made about school,
education and learning in that construction. We are interested in
public/private dualisms that are creative of teacher's spaces,
as well as the performances that are required of teachers to maintain
their status as (in)visible containers of knowledge.

Possible themes/topics/questions include, but are not limited to:

* How do discourses assumed to be private (the body) become part of the
public space in the process of evaluating intellectual competency?
* What are the pedagogical functions of a teacher's body that is
marked by difference (e.g., disabled, aging, youthful, bearing body art,
visibly ill, exceptionally attractive, very thin/fat/short/tall, etc.)?
* How are teachers' bodies marked through racial and racist
knowledges even as these bodies are made and remade in and through
interaction and performances in the classroom?
* Given the phenomenological experience of being in one's
teacher body, what pedagogies might such a reflexivity might present?
* What kinds of pedagogical actions/interventions are possible from the
space of the teacher's body?

In this special issue, we want to move toward a pedagogical stance that
opens up dialogue in and through the teacher's body. Through
drawing attention to how the body performs through (non-) conformity, we
hope not only to deconstruct power/body relations but to offer a means
to disrupt them. This call for papers specifically address the
interdisciplinary interests of critical pedagogy, critical geography,
feminist studies, performance studies, and cultural studies (among other
approaches) as they are concerned particularly with the condition of the
body in postmodern thought, and specifically the political and cultural
locations of the teacher's body in performance.

Submission Instructions

Articles should be submitted in duplicate and should be 12-15 manuscript
pages in length. Authors should submit manuscripts on disk. The disks
should be prepared using MS Word or WordPerfect and should be clearly
labeled with the authors' names, file name, and software program. A
hardcopy printout that exactly matches the disk must be supplied. Each
manuscript must be accompanied by a statement that it has not been
published elsewhere and that it has not been submitted simultaneously
for publication elsewhere. Authors are responsible for obtaining
permission to reproduce copyrighted material from other sources and are
required to sign an agreement for the transfer of copyright to the
publisher. All accepted manuscripts, artwork, and photographs become the
property of the publisher.

All parts of the manuscript should be typewritten, double-spaced, with
margins of at least one inch on all sides. Number manuscript pages
consecutively throughout the paper. Authors should also supply a
shortened version of the title suitable for the running head, not
exceeding 50 character spaces. On a separate page, attach a 2-3 sentence
biographical statement that includes a complete mailing address, phone
number, and fax number.

Illustrations submitted (line drawings, halftones, photos,
photomicrographs, etc.) should be clean originals or digital files.
Digital files are recommended for highest quality reproduction and
should follow these guidelines:

* 300 dpi or higher
* sized to fit on journal page
* EPS, TIFF, or PSD format only
* submitted as separate files, not embedded in text files

Notes should be treated as endnotes following Chapter 15 of The Chicago
Manual of Style (13th edition, 1982).

Tables and figures should not be embedded in the text, but should be
included as separate sheets or files. A short descriptive title should
appear above each table with a clear legend and any footnotes suitably
identified below. All units must be included. Figures should be
completely labeled, taking into account necessary size reduction.
Captions should be typed, double-spaced, on a separate sheet. All
original figures should be clearly marked in pencil on the reverse side
with the number, author's name, and top edge indicated.

References should be treated as author-date references following the
Chicago Manual of Style (14th edition). Include only references to books
and articles actually cited in text. All references should appear at the
end of the manuscript in alphabetical order. References in the text
should cite the author's last name, year of publication, and page (where
appropriate).

Complete articles must be received by both editors no later than
September 1, 2005; advance inquiries are encouraged. Contact the
editors at Leda Cooks (leda_at_comm.umass.edu) and Kathleen LeBesco
(klebesco_at_mmm.edu).

Mail submissions (one disk plus one hard copy each) to BOTH:

Leda M. Cooks, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Department of Communication

Machmer Hall

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Amherst, MA 01003

Kathleen LeBesco, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Communication Arts

Marymount Manhattan College

221 East 71st St.

New York, NY 10021

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Received on Tue Mar 29 2005 - 12:21:17 EST