In the second-wave women's movement in Canada (1965-1985), the rhetoric of ''freedom'' and ''choice'' occupied a prominent position in public discourses. Waged as rallying points to resist entrenched forms of gender inequality in all areas of social, economic, and political culture, this language…

According to the authors, in 2008 and 2009 a coalition of faculty, anchored by Women's Studies, challenged a proposal to bring United States Army Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) courses onto their urban public university campus. This proposal, initially approved by the faculty governance advisory committee on academic affairs, was…

In 2008, the Florida state legislature, by a nearly unanimous vote, rushed passage on a statute that allowed sex segregation in public school classrooms. According to the version of the bill that passed through the Florida House, sex-segregated public school classrooms would be an expansion of school choice and would be implemented only…

Any critical theory of education, which critical pedagogy claims to be, is intimately caught up in questions of value, critique, and the possibility of constructing more engaged and democratic forms of learning. The struggle for a democratic education is, however, more than the expression of antagonism but is also deeply concerned with human…

This essay explores the cultural-pedagogical logic of what the author calls the perlocutionary effect of transcendence that the "discourse of the West" produces. This discourse provides a fortified interiority beyond history, but also a door through which racisms, imperialisms, and fascisms of the past can possibly return. The second part of this…

September 11, 2001 generated diverse responses from around the world, but for many subjects located in "the West," an enduring perception surfaced in the aftermath of the attacks: that 9/11 revealed the fragility of the "Western Self" as a secure identity. In a move towards self-scrutiny post 9/11, it is not only the presence of the Other that has…

In this article, the author describes a feminist activism assignment that would allow students to "do something" about the many difficult social injustices they learn about in her class. The "Feminist Activism Project" has become a source of hope, frustration, anxiety, and ultimately ambivalence about the assignment's pedagogical merits. While…

Canadian scholar Elizabeth Brule argues in her 2004 essay, "Going to the Market," that the corporatization of the university has led to the construction of students as rational, economic decision makers. As Brule argues, "The only choices considered rational, however, are those that increase one's employment opportunities within the strict…

The politics of body size has been the topic of intriguing feminist work. Although in the author's view this issue is still undertheorized, the author has long sought for a way to bring what "does" exist in the literature into her academic activities. The opportunity arose when, as a graduate student at the University of Michigan in 2001, she…

Serious consideration of disability in the major social theories is a relatively new development. Feminism, critical race, and queer studies have rigorously grappled with issues of embodiment and social justice. These perspectives greatly enhance pedagogy and learning. However, the embodied experience of disability has not been a traditional topic…

Feminist historians have argued that the body needs to be historicized, noting that the body, rather than simply a static, biological, or material reality, is a site of inscription and intervention for notions of nation, race, class, sexuality, ability, and gender within particular historical contexts. Some feminist scholars have made particular…

Discusses the reaction of feminist students at Vanderbilt University (Tennessee) to a photograph, "Heaven and Hell" (A. Serrano), on the cover of the book "Arresting Images: Impolitic Art and Uncivil Actions" (S. Dubin). Their position that the photograph promotes violence toward women is one interpretation; another is that it is a powerful…

Barbie is presented as the perfect cultural site for interrogating margins, borders, and contradictions in females' lives. This article illuminates such issues by interrogating the "cumulative cultural text of Barbie." Texts criticized are: Barbie collector cards; "Barbie" and "Barbie Fashion" comic books; "Barbie, The Magazine for Girls"; and the…

Earth's current ecological crisis, rooted in modernist culture, threatens extinction in a historically distinct new manner. Western educators have responded by creating environmental education. Many educators' and authors' voices are the living roots of a transformative and prophetic holistic education for a postmodern world and must be heard…