Call for Papers: Special Issue of Philosophical Inquiry in Education (PIE)
Co-edited by Tyson Lewis (University of North Texas) and Alexander Means (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa).
Educational Philosophy in the Shadow of Fascism
Fascisms old and new loom in the shadows of many philosophical projects in the 20th century. On the one hand, there are philosophers whose names have become associated with fascist movements: Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Paul de Man. While the Nazis decontextualized and then appropriated much of Nietzsche’s writings, it is also clear that elements of his thought lend themselves to such appropriations. And with Heidegger and de Man, continual questions concern the covert influence of their overt fascistic politics on their broader existential and literary theories. Whether willing or unwilling participants in fascist movements, it is difficult to imagine reading any of these authors outside of this political context.
On the other hand, many philosophers attempted to theorize fascism in order to understand and subvert it. This list is long and includes luminaries such as György Lukács, Georges Bataille, Theodor Adorno, Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean Paul Sartre, Hannah Arendt, and Antonio Gramsci. The antifascist tradition within philosophy and social theory was expanded by figures such as Aimé Césaire from an anti-colonial perspective, Angela Davis from within the American Black liberation movement, and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in a post-May 68 French context. There was also the infamous critique of fascism offered by Bertrand Russell, who argued that the shift to fascism in Europe was essentially a philosophical error—an evaluation which would, in some respects, inform the longstanding skepticism toward continental philosophy in post-war Britain and the United States. As such, engagement with and against fascist tendencies has been a wide-ranging concern that crosses both continental and analytic philosophical camps.
While questions concerning fascism formed the crux of important debates within various 20th century philosophical movements, there is very little evidence of an extended engagement with this problematic within educational philosophy. Arguments concerning fascism pushed both analytic and continental traditions to face a series of essential philosophical questions, including questions of irrationalism, essentialism, authenticity, indoctrination, freedom, desire, nature, will, and so forth. For this issue of PIE, we are interested to explore how these concepts are not simply political or ethical but also educational. Conceptual struggles to define the will in education—ongoing from Immanual Kant to William James to Jacques Rancière to Sara Ahmed—thus take on new meaning and significance when contextualized in relation to the fascist “will to power.” It is our contention that situating educational philosophy within an (anti)fascist framework while also situating fascism within an educational problematic would be mutually beneficial for the development of more robust political, ethical, and educational responses to fascist threats.
This topic is more than a historical interest, as we are living in a moment of global fascist insurgency, and educational philosophy needs to take up the challenge of facing this threat head-on. Whether these movements embody proto-fascism, aspirational fascism, or late fascism, there is no doubt that fascism is once again a reference point for grappling with major geopolitical shifts. Shockingly, there has only been one special issue of an educational journal dedicated to this topic (see Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 46.3), and very few educational philosophy books focus on fascism (at least in an Anglophone context). While robust critical discourses address neoliberal capitalism, racism, sexism, colonialism, and classism within educational philosophy, there is a lack of engagement with the specificities of fascism(s). Returning to our opening claim: fascism is a specter that haunts progressive, liberal, multicultural, and (post)critical educational philosophies as an unresolved remainder that has yet to be adequately confronted.
For this special issue, we are particularly interested in contributions that address the following topics:
- How has educational philosophy resisted or been complicit with fascist tendencies?
- How can we read classic texts of educational philosophy through the problematic of fascism in order to rethink the history (and potential future) of democratic education?
- How can or should educational philosophy educationally approach overt and covert fascist texts, philosophers, and political figures without falling into either ethical relativism or political indoctrination?
- How does the history of fascism's complex relationship to capitalism, science, and technological rationality challenge assumptions within educational philosophy regarding the human, reason, objectivity, and nature?
- How do fascist spectacle, aesthetics, conspiracism, desire, and affect, particularly within the new algorithmic media, operate within educational spaces, and what educational philosophies are equipped to analyze and counter them?
- How does the relationship between fascism, nationalism, ethno-fundamentalism, and imperialism complicate liberal, multicultural, cosmopolitan, and decolonial approaches to educational philosophy?
- How can educational philosophy respond to fascist conceptions of nature, the environment, and ecological imaginaries (spatial, racial, gendered)?
- What particular resources do feminist, queer, and decolonial approaches to educational philosophy bring to antifascist struggles?
- How can educational philosophy intervene in the rising tide of proto-fascist sentiments globally?
- If we are witnessing a conversion of democracies into quasi- or neo-fascist states, what resources does educational philosophy offer to interrupt this trend?
- How can educational philosophy provide insight into or clarification of the differences between education and fascist indoctrination/radicalization?
Timeline:
Submission deadline: Nov 1, 2026
Feedback to authors: Dec 15, 2026
Revisions: Feb 1, 2027
Final approval: March 1, 2027
Publication: May 1 2027.