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@comm.umass.edu) and Kathleen LeBesco (klebesco@mmm.edu).

***NOTE: The deadline for submissions has been extended to October 15, 2005.***

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