Journal of Curriculum Theorizing

Working Title:

Sensual Curriculum: Understanding Curriculum of and Through the Senses

Guest Editor: Walter S. Gershon, Kent State University

Human beings understand themselves and their environments through the senses—they are the ways in which we perceive our lives and ourselves in relation to others. We therefore make sense of our worlds literally and figuratively. However, the meanings we make through sight, smell, sound, taste and touch are context dependent, predicated as much on local and more broad norms and values as our own personal preferences. As such, where sensory perception is information that we attain through our senses, the meanings ascribed to those perceptions are simultaneously deeply personal as well as ideologically and aesthetically dependent. In short, sense making is political, one possible interpretation among many possibilities.

There has been increasing attention to arts-based/influenced understandings within education and to sensory ways of knowing in fields outside of education. Although there certainly is a history of work that considers curriculum and the senses, work that examines curriculum through the senses is far less common. This is in part due to the strength of reading human interactions and social phenomenon as “big t” Text and in part to an emphasis in curriculum studies to understanding curricular phenomenon as Text. Yet, while reading interactions and phenomena as text can be critically informative and creates the space for their deconstruction and other important kinds of examinations, this interpretive move can also serve to remove the very kinds of non-text-based sensual understandings that render bodies (as but one example) so rich in meaning and possibility.

This special issue seeks to push at current conceptual boundaries in the relationships between curriculum and the senses. Contributions to this special issue have been framed in the following manner. Roughly half of the issue will correspond to each of the five senses, examining the ways in which that particular sense intersects with questions of curriculum, writ broadly. The remaining entries will address the relationship between curriculum and the senses in a more holistic, general fashion; these pieces can, however, foreground a particular sense in order to illustrate more general curricular, sensory understandings. Attention will be paid to help ensure a diversity of fields, methods, institutions, and sensual perspectives.

Authors wishing to submit manuscripts in response to this call must have their work submitted via the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing website (http://journal.jctonline.org/index.php/jct) no later than October 1, 2010. All manuscripts will be subject to a double-blind review process. Potential authors will be notified of their acceptance to this issue by December 1, 2010 with an expected publication date of September 2011. Manuscripts should be prepared according to the author’s guideline posted on the JCT website (http://journal.jctonline.org/index.php/jct/about/submissions#authorGuidelines). Please note that these requirements include that the manuscript ascribe to the following guidelines:

1. No more than 25 pages in length including references
2. Double-spaced throughout
3. 1-inch margins on all sides
4. Written in 12 point, Times New Roman
5. Footnotes should be gathered at the end of the paper
6. Utilize the 6^th edition of the American Psychological Association

Finally, while questions of quality are of paramount importance to the inclusion of manuscripts for this special issue, given the nature of this special issue topic, alternative and innovative uses of JCT’s online formatting are encouraged. Questions pertaining to this call for manuscripts should be addressed to Walter S. Gershon, the guest editor for this special issue, via email at wgershon(at)kent.edu.