“Politics and the Pedagogue of Late Antiquity”

The introductory essay serves to situate this special issue in its original context: a workshop on "Politics, Pedagogy, and the Profession," hosted in November 2017 at Harvard Divinity School's Center for the Study of World Religions for graduate students and teachers of pre-modernity. The workshop marked the beginning of a collaborative project, whose products thus far include, inter alia, a shared database of pedagogical resources, conference sessions to extend discussions of teaching politically-charged subjects to a wider audience, and the contributions to the issue at hand. The introductory essay provides readers with background information concerning the project's aims and initial findings, including a discussion of instructors' motivations for addressing contemporary political considerations; the risks and rewards teaching politically-charged topics; and the institutional and disciplinary resources available to instructors. The essay also provides an introductory preview of the articles gathered in this special issue.