It is my distinct pleasure to start off the academic year 2020-2021 with this special issue, Critical Pedagogies and the Teaching and Learning of Foreign Languages in Dangerous Times, guest edited by Panayota Gounari, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, specialized in language policy, critical discourse analysis, and critical pedagogy. I have long been eager to bring to the attention of both practitioners and researchers in Applied Linguistics the dynamic and politically engaged field of Critical Pedagogy.