Feminist Teacher
Forthcoming Issue

Articles:                  

Book Reviews:

Abstracts:

"How I Taught Values"
by Annis Pratt

I begin this article with a summary of fifty years of debate about whether values can or should be taught at colleges and universities,  including an account of the impact of professorial disdain for teaching values on the psyche of my contemporary, the unibomber Ted Kacynski. After providing definitions of values drawn from Toni Morrison and the Olinger studies of Gentile rescuers during the Holocaust,  I  set forth my feminist experiential method in sections on “How I Taught Values,” “Syllabus as Value,” “Classroom Discussion” and “Assignments.”  I conclude with a brief assessment of value teaching for today’s Women’s Studies professors.

"His Story/Her Story"
by Beth Berila, et al

Given that feminist scholarship is entering its fourth decade and that more Women’s Studies Programs are including the term “gender” in their program names, it is imperative that Women’s Studies Programs ask: has the field of Women’s Studies developed to the point that we should embrace Men’s Studies as an essential part of our programs?  The writers of the following article argue that when undertaken intentionally and carefully, Men’s Studies provide an important complement to Women’s Studies and can help achieve such feminist aims as acknowledging differences, both among women and among men; advancing an intersectional understanding of gender; encouraging men to take feminism seriously; addressing homophobia with students; and speaking more directly to the interests and concerns of our students. 

"‘Women Educating for Peace’: A participatory video project"
by Jackie Kirk and Monica Mak

This article describes some of the major issues relating to women’s stories and experiences as educators for peace. They emerge from a year long, participatory video project involving a group of 15 women in Montreal, all concerned with issues of pedagogy and peace. This project concentrates on the teachers as women, on their stories, both personal and professional; it situates activism for peace of women educators within a broader ‘women, peace and security’ agenda. The article describes some of the individual factors of influence that motivate the participants to be active educating for peace in their schools, and highlights some of the approaches participants use in their work. Also discussed are the challenges the women face, and the tensions and contradictions which exist for women who seek alternative and creative ways to build peace, but who are working within a very structured education system with its own patterns, hierarchies and limitations. The article ends with discussion of the implications of the project for teacher education and professional development

"Reflections on the No Uterus Rule: Pregnancy, Academia, and Feminist Pedagogy"
by Janet Hinson Shope

In this paper, I discuss how traditional academic discourse and culture assumes a disembodied subject, one who does not occupy a body in time and space. I explore the implications of how an embodied presence, a pregnant professor, challenges the unstated no-uterus rule operating in higher education.  I share my personal pregnancy narrative to illustrate the problems associated with an institutional culture oriented towards the life of the mind for faculty and students. I discuss the implications of a feminist pedagogy that adopts an embodied approach to knowledge in the classroom.