CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS: Chapters for a Special Issue in Feminist Pedagogy-- Abolitionist Principles and Pedagogy: Teaching to Build the World Anew

Jennifer Potter, jpotter@towson.edu

Harney and Moten (2013) define abolition as “not so much the abolition of prisons but the abolition of a society that could have prisons, that could have slavery, that could have the wage, and therefore not abolition as the elimination of anything but abolition as the founding of a new society” (p. 42). Love (2019) draws from this definition of abolition to argue:

Abolitionist teaching is not a teaching approach: It is a way of life, a way of seeing the world, and a way of taking action against injustice. It seeks to resist, agitate, and tear down the educational survival complex though teachers who work in solidarity with their schools’ community to achieve incremental changes in their classrooms and schools for students in the present day, while simultaneously freedom dreaming and vigorously creating a vision for what schools will be when the educational survival complex is destroyed (p. 89). 

U.S. schools and institutions of higher education have historically been spaces of oppression, lacking opportunities for critical and creative thinking, and built on white supremacist ideologies. Abolitionist pedagogies give us the space to consider a new approach to education and the possibility to connect our teaching practices to a larger commitment to abolition broadly. 

This special issue seeks to address how we can bring abolitionist principles into our classrooms and how we can lean into abolitionist pedagogical practices both to help our students understand abolition and to teach our students how to utilize abolitionist principles in their daily lives. We are interested in proposals that speak to abolitionist pedagogies that incorporate feminist principles such as anti-racism, liberatory practices, co-construction of knowledge, and teaching towards futurity. And we seek proposals that grapple with Kaba’s (2021) belief that “hope is a discipline” (p. 69) and Love’s (2019) notion that “abolitionist teaching is not sustainable without joy” (p. 120).

We invite submissions for Critical Commentaries (1,000-1,200 words) on approaches to teaching these topics and Original Teaching Activities (1,500-2,500 words), which may include topics such as: 

• Teaching topics of police abolition, prison abolition, debt abolition, and more.
• Modeling abolitionist principles in the college classroom through the process of syllabi construction and class policy creation.
• Reimaging the classroom space through an abolitionist frame rather than through a frame of carceral logics.
• Pedagogical investments in restorative justice practices as an alternative to traditional punitive practices and interpersonal conflict management.
• Co-construction of knowledge, classroom practices, and course outcomes as a form of abolitionist worldmaking.
• Reflective opportunities to engage in decentering whiteness in our classrooms to unlearn the carceral logics often inherent in our approaches.
• Developing opportunities for solidarity and community-building for students and faculty committed to abolitionist principles in campus and/or community organizing.
• Approaches for guiding students in the reimagining of existing structures of oppression and teaching towards futurity. 
• Creating classrooms that honor “radical joy,” serve as sanctuaries to identify, display, and address emotions and to channel that passion to change the system.

We are also interested in Media Reviews of documentaries or other useful tools for teaching on abolitionist topics (500-1,000 words). Media reviews should be constructive in nature and largely positive. Reviews should note the scope and purpose of the work and its usefulness to educators. We are particularly interested in reviews that detail ways to use the media as a teaching tool.

Submissions must follow the journal’s style and requirements. See Instructions for Authors for more information. 

Please submit a 200-500 word extended abstract by March 15, 2024, to be considered for this special issue. Accepted proposals will be notified by April 1, 2024.

Authors with accepted proposals will be required to complete peer reviews of 1-2 other articles in the special issue. Please only submit a proposal if you can meet this commitment.

The full timetable for the special issues is as follows:

• Abstracts due: March 15, 2024
• Notice of acceptance: April 1, 2024
• Full drafts due: May 30, 2024
• Peer reviews due: June 30, 202
• Revised drafts due: August 1, 2024

Please send all inquiries and/or abstract submissions to Jennifer Potter at jpotter@towson.edu, with “Feminist Pedagogy Special Issue” in the subject heading.

Abstract Submission Deadline: March 15, 2024