[ecrea] CFP Cinema Journal Teaching Dossier: Critical Pedagogies in Neoliberal Times

CFP Cinema Journal Teaching Dossier: Critical Pedagogies in Neoliberal 
Times 
<http://www.teachingmedia.org/cfp-cinema-journal-teaching-dossier-critical-pedagogies-neoliberal-times/>
Edited by Courtney Bailey and Julie Wilson, Allegheny College

The increasingly corporatized neoliberal university represents an 
aggressive threat to critical pedagogies and professors who resist the 
“safe spaces” of diversity discourse and actively address systems of 
privilege and oppression. On an institutional level, this threat 
manifests itself in amplified efforts to build brand value in a 
competitive market, policies designed to “protect” those brands, and 
increased reliance on capital campaigns in the face of austerity 
measures. As crystalized powerfully by the Salaita case, academic 
freedom no longer provides a sufficient counter-balance to forces of 
corporatization.

At the same time, professors committed to examining power and systemic 
inequality are increasingly likely to find their pedagogies challenged 
from below by students. On the one hand, these challenges issue from 
students with reactionary politics, while on the other hand they also 
come from students who have been traumatized by systems of oppression. 
Prominent debates over “trigger warnings,” for instance, speak to 
fundamental tensions we must navigate: how to teach about the brutal 
workings of systemic oppression in a context where neoliberal tenets of 
personal responsibility and privatization individualize suffering and 
its solutions in ever more insidious ways. Critical media and cultural 
studies scholars are poised to feel these tensions even more acutely, as 
we often teach discomforting material that is aimed to reflect and make 
present the very regimes we hope to disrupt through our critical pedagogies.

For this issue of the Cinema Journal Teaching Dossier, we hope to 
collect a range of essays that reflect on how we might navigate the 
myriad forces of neoliberalism impinging on media studies classrooms. 
How can we constitute our classrooms as spaces of resistance in the 
context of corporatized education? How do we meet, confront, and/or 
disrupt the neoliberal politics of identity that students bring to our 
classrooms? What are the specific challenges faced by critical media 
instructors today, and how can we productively address these challenges?

We welcome essays focused on specific topics (e.g., trigger warnings) 
and/or assignments, other pedagogical approaches/strategies grounded in 
particular case studies or contexts, or more theoretically-oriented 
contributions. Please submit a 250-word abstract for a proposed 
1500-word essay and a 150-word biography to Courtney Bailey 
((cbailey /at/ alleghney.edu) <mailto:(cbailey /at/ alleghney.edu)>) and Julie Wilson 
((jwilson /at/ allegheny.edu) <mailto:(jwilson /at/ allegheny.edu)>) by February 
16th.  Completed essays (including all images and links) will be due on 
April 17th.




--
Julie Ann Wilson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Arts and Theatre
Allegheny College * 520 North Main * Meadville, Pennsylvania 16335