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Call for Papers

Submission Guidelines

Original Teaching Activities (1,500-2,500 words, not including references): Instructional activities, assignments, projects or assessment techniques for a single class; unit, module, or semester-long projects; or approaches to an entire course

Submissions should be applicable to a wide range of classes across disciplines and forefront feminist pedagogy by focusing on strategies related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and access.

Each submission must include the following information:

  • Title
  • Introduction and Rationale
  • Learning Objectives
  • Explanation
  • Debriefing
  • Assessment
  • References

Here's an example of an excellent OTA: What’s the Word on the Street?: Witnessing/Performing Theory

Critical Commentaries (1,000-1,200 words, not including references): Thoughtful reflections on teaching practices and processes. Short editorials offer a first person perspective on feminist pedagogy as a method or philosophy. Narrative expositions allow contributors to share insights and ideas without focusing on a specific classroom activity or assignment.

Here's an example of an excellent CC: The Threat of Returning to “Normal”: Resisting Ableism in the Post-COVID Classroom

Social Justice Strategies (1,000-1,750 words, not including references): Practices and resources for the classroom or campus community that advocate for social justice, human rights, and/or the inclusion of marginalized people. Specific texts, thematic compilations, organized events, and strategies for engagement are welcomed.

Each submission must include the following information:

  • Title
  • Overview of Strategy, including Target Audience
  • Rationale
  • Analysis of Effectiveness
  • References

Book and Media Reviews (500-1,000 words):

Book reviews of pedagogical approaches, theories, and methods. No textbook reviews.

Media reviews of educational resources and documentaries useful for teaching.

We ask that book and media criticism is constructive in nature and largely positive. Reviews should note the scope and purpose of the work and its usefulness to educators, although other information may certainly be included.

Please email the Book and Media Review Editor, Dr. Aubrey Huber, at aubreyahuber@usf.edu with any questions. No unsolicited reviews are accepted.

Call for Special Issue Proposals

Feminist Pedagogy invites scholars to submit proposals for special issues in line with the journal’s focus on higher education teaching strategies and approaches. The purpose of the special issue is to provide a collection of articles on a specific topic of feminist pedagogy that the journal has not covered substantially and has the potential to be of high interest to the readers. We will consider proposals for special issues throughout the year.

If you have further questions, or are ready to submit a proposal, please contact us at .

Special issue proposals may take three forms:

  • revised and extended papers, previously presented at a conference, that focus on areas within the scope of the journal.
  • special issues with a specific theme and an open call for papers. We are happy to post open calls on our journal website.
  • collections that span a single discipline. We are happy to post open calls on our journal website.

Information to be provided in a proposal:

  • 500 word rationale explaining the significance, novelty, and adherence to the scope of the journal of the proposed theme.
  • a list of suggested topics within the theme.
  • a plan for obtaining quality papers.
  • a condensed CV of the proposed Guest Editor(s).
  • list of potential reviewers.
  • a proposed call-for-papers (if needed).
  • a proposed timeline , including submission deadlines and completion of the editorial process.

Selection of proposals based on:

  • overall quality of the proposal.
  • theme is within the scope of the journal.
  • provides significant novelty and complements previously published issues of the journal.
  • focus on intersectionality.
  • likelihood of delivering the final product within the proposed deadline.

CFP: Special Issue: Food

Guest Editor: Kristy L. Byrd

Submission Deadline for Abstracts: July 1, 2026

Food is never just sustenance—it is a vital site through which power, identity, labor, ecology, culture, health, and resistance are negotiated. This special issue seeks contributions that center food within feminist pedagogical practice. Feminist pedagogy is committed to critical, inclusive, and justice-oriented teaching. As such, it offers a rich framework for interrogating how food systems are taught and experienced across educational contexts. We welcome submissions from a variety of disciplinary approaches as well as interdisciplinary approaches that challenge traditional academic boundaries.

This special issue will include the following types of submissions:

  • Original teaching activities (1,500 – 2,500 words)
  • Critical commentaries (1,000 – 1,200 words)
  • Social justice strategies (1,000 – 1,750 words)
  • Book and media reviews (500-1,000 words)
See Instructions for Authors for more details about these categories and the requirements for each.

Possible Themes and Topics Include (but are not limited to):

  • The intersection of critical food studies and feminist pedagogical frameworks  
  • Role of food and fasting in religious or spiritual contexts and communities
  • Labor and the politics of cooking and feeding  
  • Food as a site of resistance, activism, and community-building
  • Food justice, sovereignty, and anti-capitalist pedagogies  
  • Queer, trans, and decolonial approaches to food education  
  • Food as a site of gendered, racialized, classed, and colonial power relations  
  • Pedagogies of hunger, scarcity, and public policy
  • Critical analyses of nutrition education, public health messaging, and moralizing discourses around food and/or eating disorders
  • Climate change, sustainability, and feminist food futures  
  • Service-learning strategies involving cooking, gardening, or food sharing  
  • Food access and food deserts
  • Student food insecurity and campus responses

Submission Guidelines:

Please submit an extended abstract of 150-250 words, along with a brief biographical statement (up to 100 words), to byrdk@uncw.edu with the subject line “Feminist Pedagogy Special Issue” by June 1, 2026. Abstracts should clearly articulate details about the teaching activity, critical commentary, social justice strategy, or book/media review and its relevance to feminist pedagogy and food studies. Authors must be willing to serve as a reviewer for two other accepted submissions.

Schedule:

Submission Deadline for Abstracts: July 1, 2026

Notifications: July 15, 2026

Full Manuscripts Due: October 15, 2026

Peer Review Deadline: December 31, 2026

Revised Manuscripts Due: February 15, 2027

Questions?

Please contact the guest editor at byrdk@uncw.edu.

Bachelor’s Degree: Teaching with Reality TV in the Feminist Classroom

Guest Editor: Krystal Cleary kcleary@tulane.edu

Submission Deadline for Abstracts: August 21, 2026

“Woman Takes Short Half-Hour Break From Being Feminist To Enjoy TV Show.” So reads the title of a January 2014 article published on the satirical news website The Onion about screening the wedding-themed reality series Say Yes to the Dress (TLC, 2007-). More than a decade later, the sardonic headline still captures the dominant sentiment that feminism and reality television are incompatible. Reality television programs— especially romance shows like The Bachelor (ABC, 2003-)—are feminized “guilty pleasures” (Weber, 2014; Zibrak, 2021) that, in the popular imagination, are so retrograde we must abandon our critical faculties and social justice commitments to enjoy them. Scholars and critics of the genre have long analyzed the interlocking logics of white supremacy, misogyny, neoliberal Americanness, ableism, and heterosexism that shape reality television’s representational landscape and its denigration as a “trash” cultural production. And yet, some argue that it is precisely because reality television is not beholden to the gender, race, and class-based standards of “quality” programming that the genre often offers comparatively more diversity and intersectional nuance in its representation of identities, bodies, and kinship formations (Gates, 2018; Haller, 2024; Lindermann, 2022). This special issue of Feminist Pedagogy takes the genre of reality television seriously as a cultural site that can cultivate and energize—rather than erode—students’ critical thinking skills and feminist political consciousness.

What reality television’s public pedagogy teaches us about ourselves, systemic power relations, and the global media landscape preoccupies reality television studies. For instance, scholars argue that the genre functions as a disciplinary technology for neoliberal citizenship (Ouellette & Hay, 2008), increases viewer prejudice of fat bodies (Rich, 2011; Sender & Sullivan, 2008), and endorses heternonormative sexual scripts and sexualized aggression (Papp et al., 2022). Leveraging reality television’s pedagogical power in higher education, a small body of scholarship details the utility of the genre in teaching threshold concepts and theories in business management (Quain et al., 2018), psychology (Burr & King, 2012), sociology (Radu, 2024), political science (Dreyer, 2011), communication (Rahoi-Gilchrest, 2011), and media history and theory (Burditt, 2019; Grandinetti, 2019; Saidel, 2019). Because the genre is a media-convergent shapeshifter, there is nary an issue or industry that reality television doesn't touch, making it a nimble teaching tool across fields. Curiously, however, little of this literature engages feminist studies or feminist pedagogical praxis. This special issue seeks to contribute to this conversation from an explicitly intersectional feminist perspective, elucidating how teacher-scholars mine reality television as a pedagogical resource for feminist classrooms across disciplines.

We seek critical commentaries (1000-1,200 words), original teaching activities (1,500-2,500 words), and social justice strategies (1,000-1,750 words) that harness student enthusiasm for reality television to develop their critical analytical skills and fluency in course material. Proposals may address, but need not be limited to, the following topics:

  • Using reality television to teach threshold concepts and theories across disciplines.
  • Using reality television and the deluge of digital discourse it inspires as entry points into critical considerations of power, institutions, and identities (e.g., 90 Day Fiancé [TLC, 2014] and immigration politics and visa law; the cancellation of the recent The Bachelorette season [ABC, 2026] and relationship violence; interlocking post-feminist and post-racial fantasies in Selling Sunset [Netflix, 2019-] and The Kardashians [Hulu, 2022-]; reality television, civic engagement, and local/national/global politics; reality television and surveillance culture; reality television, labor, and unionization, etc.).
  • Teaching feminist media analysis and research methods with reality television (close textual analysis, critical discourse analysis, political economy of media, ethnography, etc.).
  • Classroom strategies, activities, and assessments modeled on the conventions of reality television (e.g., confessional-inspired video essays, competition-based classroom activities, etc.).
  • Using reality television to teach critical production practices for creating public-facing feminist scholarship and media.
  • How the genre, from its politics of representation to its industrial structures, is racialized, classed, and gendered, etc.
  • Reality television, social media, and the formation of students’ identities, consumer practices, and career aspirations.
  • Information/media literacy and constructions of “authenticity” on reality television.
  • Unlearning reality television’s public pedagogy, teaching against reality television.

We are also interested in media and book reviews (500-1,000 words) of texts, educational resources, and documentaries useful for teaching about/with reality television. We ask that criticism be constructive in nature and largely positive. Reviews should note the scope and purpose of the work, as well as its usefulness to educators.

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

To propose an article, please submit a 200-300-word abstract that indicates the prospective piece’s category (critical commentary, original teaching activity, social justice strategy, or media/book review). Authors with accepted proposals will be required to complete blind reviews of two other accepted articles. Please only submit a proposal if you can commit to this term.

The timeline for the special issue is as follows:

  • Proposal abstracts (200-300 words) due: August 21, 2026
  • Notice of acceptance: September 4, 2026
  • Full drafts due: January 8, 2027
  • 2 Peer reviews due: February 12, 2027
  • Revised drafts due: April 9, 2027

Please send all inquiries and proposal submissions to Krystal Cleary (kcleary@tulane.edu) with “Feminist Pedagogy Special Issue” in the subject heading.

References

Burditt, R. (2019). Reality TV, genre theory, and shaping the real. Teaching Media Quarterly, 7(3). https://pubs.lib.umn.edu/index.php/tmq/article/view/2105/1669

Burr, V., & King, N. (2012). “You’re in cruel England now!”: Teaching research ethics through reality television. Psychology Learning and Teaching, 11(1), 22–29. https://doi.org/10.2304/plat.2012.11.1.22

Dreyer, D. R. (2011). Learning from popular culture: The “politics” of competitive reality television programs. PS: Political Science & Politics, 44(2), 409–413. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096511000254

Gates, R. (2018). Double negative: The black image and popular culture. Duke University Press.

Grandinetti, J. J. (2019). Teaching the lineage of televisual control and reality TV. Teaching Media Quarterly, 7(3). https://pubs.lib.umn.edu/index.php/tmq/article/view/2095/1668

Haller, B. A. (2024). Disabled people transforming media culture for a more inclusive world. Routledge.

Lindermann, D. J. (2022). True story: What reality TV says about us. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Ouellette, L. & Hay, J. (2008). Better living through reality TV. Blackwell.

Papp, L. J., Ward, L. M., & Marshall, R. A. (2022). Contributions of reality TV consumption to college women’s endorsement of the heterosexual script and acceptance of sexualized aggression. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 46(1), 50–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/03616843211044686

Quain, B., Bokunewicz, J. F., & Criscione-Naylor, N. M. (2018). The profit: Using reality TV to teach management theories and strategies. Cogent Education, 5(1), Article 1444326. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2018.1444326

Radu, M. B. (2024). Teaching sociology through reality TV: Understanding society through the small screen. Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence, 8(2), Article 3. https://doi.org/]10.59620/2644-2132.1159

Rahoi-Gilchrest, R. L. (2011). The semiotics of teaching with reality TV: A theory-based approach to teaching and modeling communication theory. Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal, 38(1), 83-91. https://doi.org/10.56816/2471-0032.1057

Rich, E. (2011). “I see her being obesed!”: Public pedagogy, reality media and the obesity crisis. Health, 15(1), 3–21. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363459309358127

Saidel, E. (2019). Emotional spectacle and reality television: Constructing the authentic. Teaching Media Quarterly, 7(3). https://pubs.lib.umn.edu/index.php/tmq/article/view/2053/1681

Sender, K., & Sullivan, M. (2008). Epidemics of will, failures of self-esteem: Responding to fat bodies in The Biggest Loser and What Not to Wear. Continuum, 22(4), 573–584. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304310802190046

Weber, B. R. (2014). Trash talk: Gender as an analytic on reality television. In B. R. Weber (Ed.), Reality gendervision: Sexuality and gender on transatlantic reality television (pp.1-34). Duke University Press.

Woman takes short half-hour break from being feminist to enjoy TV show (2014, January 23). The Onion. Retrieved June 1, 2026, from https://theonion.com/woman-takes-short-half-hour-break-from-being-feminist-t-1819576049/.

Zibrak, A. (2021). Avidly reads guilty pleasures. New York University Press.