Journal of Curriculum Theorizing

Call for Manuscripts

Cultivating the Multicultural Imagination:

Lived Experience, Political Struggle, and Curriculum of Hope

Special Issue of Journal of Curriculum Theorizing

Guest Editors: Suniti Sharma (The University of Texas, Brownsville) and JoAnn Phillion, (Purdue University)

Associate Editor: Jubin Rahatzad (Purdue University)

This special issue articulates the multicultural imagination setting in motion a range of ideas that respond to the complexities of lived experience and political struggle, the dilemmas of historical change, the intersections of art, embodiment and interpretation as powerful sources for curriculum inquiry, theoretical reflection, and emancipatory practice envisioning hope, possibility, and change. Tradition and meaning that have stabilized the definition of multicultural education turn on ontological, epistemological, and methodological axes by provoking the question, what possibilities for hope does the multicultural imagination incite? Claims to ontological categories and hierarchies, epistemologies of identity and difference, and posthistorical methodologies of disjunctions and proliferations present multicultural education as a contested field in contemporary curriculum theorizing. In cultivating the multicultural imagination, this issue advances various forms of curriculum theorizing in the hope that profound and embodied transformations are thinkable, even possible. This special issue grows out of rich conversations with curriculum scholars who have resisted established orthodoxies and current disciplinary mandates, participated in political struggles for equity and inclusion, and provoked us to think otherwise about the liberating possibilities of reading, telling, and teaching of other lived experiences, other histories, other futures, and the place of our own embodied experiences within these other stories. In so doing, we not only read, tell, and teach the past but position the present moment interrupting the momentum of a seemingly determined history to push the limits of possibility toward an imagined future.

Contributions to this special issue welcome diversity of fields, epistemologies, methodologies, and perspectives as well as geographical and institutional diversity. Authors wishing to submit manuscripts in response to this call for proposals must have their work submitted via email to both Suniti Sharma <suniti.sharma@utb.edu> and JoAnn Phillion <phillion@purdue.edu> no later than April 1, 2012. All manuscripts will be subject to a double-blind review process. Potential authors will be notified of their acceptance to this issue by July 1, 2012 with an expected publication date of December 2012.

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)      Abstract of no more than 150 words in addition to the 25 pages

3)      Double-spaced throughout

4)      1-inch margins on all sides

5)      Written in 12 point, Times New Roman

6)      Footnotes should be gathered at the end of the paper

7)      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 proposals should be addressed via email to Suniti Sharma at <Suniti.Sharma@utb.edu> or JoAnn Phillion at <phillion@purdue.edu>, the guest editors for this special issue.