2023 JCT Bergamo Conference CFP

Dear Friends of the Bergamo Conference and JCT,

The Journal of Curriculum Theorizing will host its 43rd annual conference gathering at Bergamo on October 12-14, 2023. We are hosting an in-person meeting and are looking forward to connecting with those who can come and are committed to creating a safe, dynamic, and strong conference experience. 

Our theme this year is “Authenticity?.” Here is a link to the conference proposal submission portal. The portal will be open through August 7, 2023.

Please read the call for papers for complete details on our theme for Bergamo 2023, “Authenticity?”

For this conference we ask you to consider:

How do scholar practitioners in the curriculum field understand, know, want, create, mistake, and cultivate “authenticity” in education, politics, religion, economy, health, sexuality, etc. from many perspectives, or not?

In addition to work addressing the conference theme, the organizers invite a wide range of submissions that revolve around, but are not limited to, the following categories:

  • Cultural Studies and Curriculum
  • International/Transnational Curriculum Discourses
  • Engaging Texts
  • Higher Education and Curriculum Theorizing
  • Curriculum Studies and Philosophical Perspectives
  • Curriculum Theory, Classroom Practice, and Disciplinary Perspectives

Reminder to Register!

Reminder to Register!

JCT Annual Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice

Conference Theme: Living in the Shadows of Freedom

Dates: October 13-15, 2022

Conference location: Bergamo Conference Center in Dayton, Ohio

Go to http://tinyurl.com/jct2022 or scan the QR code to go to the event website. 

Registration closes on Monday, September 26. 

Questions? Please email conference@jctonline.org
Reminder to Register! JCT Annual Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice Conference Theme: Living in the Shadows of Freedom Dates: October 13-15, 2022 Conference location: Bergamo Conference Center in Dayton, Ohio Go to http://tinyurl.com/jct2022 or scan the QR code to go to the event website. Registration closes on Monday, September 26. Questions? Please email conference@jctonline.org

JCT Graduate Student Council Informational Meeting

JCT Graduate Student Council is hosting an informational meeting on August 31, 2022 from 5:30-6:30 PM (EST).

The Graduate Student Council offers opportunities for emerging professionals to

  • Learn about academic writing and publication
  • Connect with thought-leaders in the field of curriculum theory.
  • Participate in organization JCT’s Annual Bergamo Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice.
    • This year’s conference is on October 13-15, 2022, at the Bergamo Conference Center in Dayton, Ohio.

Please join us and get involved!

Register in advance for this meeting at the following link: https://communityinclusion.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEodO-hqzouGNMMio0nj1kIMRLwKCDaqcyc

For more information, please contact Tracy P. Beard at tbeard@jctonline.org

Reminder: JCT Conference Proposal Due Date is 8/5/22

Please remember that the due date for proposals to this year’s JCT Conference in Dayton, Ohio, on October 13-15, is August 5, 2022.

To help you prepare, The JCT Graduate Student Council hosted a webinar entitled
“Get Accepted! How to write a stellar conference proposal.” 
Watch a replay of the webinar: https://fb.watch/cYYBC3v-33/  
Link to presentation slides: https://tinyurl.com/bddexv54  
Call for Proposal Submission Link: https://www.cvent.com/c/abstracts/2b8fb670-cc70-459d-9ee1-2d2636c7fa28
Submission Due Date: August 5, 2022
Bergamo Conference: October 13-15, 2022

If you are interested in joining the JCT Graduate Student Council and joining us this fall at Bergamo, please get in touch with Tracy Beard at tbeard@jctonline.org.

We are really looking forward to seeing your proposals and welcoming you to our annual meeting.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email us at conference@jctonline.org 

Many best regards,
Tom Poetter, Editor, JCT, President, Foundation for Curriculum Theory
Jaimie Baker and Jing Tan, Conference Co-Chairs, Miami University

Registration is now open!

Alternative text for image:
Registration is now open for the JCT Annual Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice!

Conference Theme: Living in the Shadows of Freedom

Date: October 13-15, 2022

Location: Bergamo Conference Center in Dayton, OH

The QR code will take you to the event website. A link to the event website is located beneath the image. 

The Conference proposal submission portal is open now through August 5, 2022. The link to the portal can be found on jctonline.org.

Questions? Email conference@jctonline.org
Alternative text for image: Registration is now open for the JCT Annual Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice! Conference Theme: Living in the Shadows of Freedom Date: October 13-15, 2022 Location: Bergamo Conference Center in Dayton, OH The QR code will take you to the event website. A link to the event website is located beneath the image. The Conference proposal submission portal is open now through August 5, 2022. The link to the portal can be found on jctonline.org. Questions? Email conference@jctonline.org

This link will also take you to the event website!

This link will take you to the conference proposal submission portal.

Proposal Portal Now Open!

Hello, everyone!
We are excited to share that the proposal portal for the 42nd annual JCT Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice is now open!
Conference Theme: Living in the Shadows of Freedom
Dates: October 13-15, 2022
Location: Bergamo Conference Center in Dayton, Ohio
2022 Call for Proposals 
Additional Information about the call can be found 2022 Bergamo Call
Click on this link to submit a proposal
Submission Due Date: August 5, 2022
Please email conference@jctonline.org if you have any questions.
We look forward to seeing your submissions!
Best regards,
Tom Poetter, Editor, JCT, President, Foundation for Curriculum Theory
Jing Tan and Jaimie Baker, Conference Co-Chairs, Miami University

2022 JCT Bergamo Conference CFP

Dear Friends of the Bergamo Conference and JCT,

The Journal of Curriculum Theorizing will host its 42nd annual conference gathering at Bergamo on October 13-15, 2022. We are hosting an in-person meeting and are looking forward to connecting with those who can come and are committed to creating a safe, dynamic, and strong conference experience. 

We intend to open the portal for submissions by April 25, 2022 through August 5, 2022. Our theme this year is “Living in the Shadows of Freedom.”

For this conference, we ask you to consider how scholar practitioners in the curriculum field understand, know, want, create, mistake, and treasure “freedom” in education, politics, religion, economy, health, sexuality, etc. from many perspectives? We aren’t hoping to solve the dilemma or eliminate the shadow of nuance of the concept of freedom in our own lives and experience, but to reveal and understand it more completely as we live through its contours and shadows. In short, how do we become more free?

We ask you to consider where scholars in the curriculum field see, feel, understand, know, want, create, mistake, and treasure “light” in the work and its manifestations in the world, in educational settings and others, where so much of our day-to-day existences are at stake. We invite participants to enter into complicated conversations with/for us about the presence or not, the intensity or not, the importance or not of “light” and/or “luminosity” in the curriculum field. How do curriculum theory and practice light the way or not?

A Final Note on Bergamo 2021

Dear Friends, 
I wanted to send a warm thank you to everyone who was able to attend the JCT Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice last month at the Bergamo Center in Dayton, Ohio.  We had such a good turnout for the meeting and the sessions and keynotes and community building moments reminded me of outstanding Bergamo meetings in the past. And it also had the warm feel of something new, with new relationships, new knowledge, and new horizons of hope and possibility for the field emerging.  Thanks for providing that with your work and your presence at the meeting together. 

I also want to say thank you to everyone who tried to come to the meeting and couldn’t, even after submitting a proposal and getting accepted, and in some cases planning to come.  Life in a pandemic presents difficult barriers, and these barriers kept some away.  I am hoping you are all well and thinking about joining us next year in Dayton for the meeting, October 13-15, 2022.  We missed you and hope to see you then.


And last, Jaimie Biermann and Jing Tan did such an outstanding job putting the program and the event together.  I owe them such a deep debt of gratitude for their effort and grace in all of the moments spent putting the meeting together for at least 6 months leading up to it.  Colleagues at Miami and the journal, Managing Editor Kelly Waldrop and Editors Denise Baszile and Brian Schultz, and our section editors Boni Wozolek, Paul Eaton, Aparna Tarc, Roland Mitchell, Xin Li, Jayna McQueen, and Jodi Googins all play such a huge role in pulling the journal and the meeting together this year.  And a rousing thank you for the outstanding keynote presentations/papers by Rob Helfenbein and Vonzell Agosto, which both really brought energy and new ideas to the meeting. 
Many thanks to all and here’s to a strong close to the fall semester, and a great year ahead in 2022, including our annual meeting next October 13-15 at Bergamo.


Best regards, Tom

You’re Invited to the Upcoming Abington Book Talks

The Penn State Abington Education Program invites you to attend the following book series dialogues. Please see information below and the attached flyers!

September 9, 2021 at 12pm (ET): Dr. Rob Helfenbein, from Mercer University, will be speaking on his recently released book, Critical Geographies of Education: Space, Place, and Curriculum Inquiry.

September 14 at 10am (ET): Dr. Dennis Francis, from Stellenbosch University, will be speaking on his forthcoming book, Queer Activism in South African Education: Disrupting Cis(hetero)normativity in Schools (Routledge).

2021 Letter to Accepted Authors

Dear Eminently Luminous JCT Conference Authors!                          

Congratulations on the acceptance of your scholarly presentations and themed panels and workshops for our conference October 7-9, 2021, at the Bergamo Retreat Center in Dayton, Ohio. We want you to know how encouraged we were in reading all of the proposals. The range of topics and ideas and insights will engage us all at the meeting and shed light on the field in the moment and for years to come. Thank you for your interest and commitment to the meeting and to each other as a scholarly community.

We are so excited to welcome our keynote speakers for the conference, Dr. Vonzell Agosto and Dr. Rob Helfenbein. Their work will be significant highlights of the meeting!

In addition to the joy of congratulations, there are a few things we want you all to know as you prepare for the conference.

Over the past two years, we have been working diligently with the Bergamo Center Staff to create a new economic and service model for the meeting. In the past, the JCT conference leadership team has been heavily involved in the meals and the guest room stay process. JCT purchased a digital platform every year to handle conference registrations, taking orders for meals and rooms because the Bergamo Center did not have its own system for it. However, in the past year, the Bergamo Center has established the capacity to manage reservations for its guest rooms, so the Bergamo Center will be handling all of that work this year and JCT will no longer be involved in room reservations or meal planning, selling meals, taking tickets, etc. To be frank, after the meeting in 2019, there was no way for us to handle that work going forward both in terms of labor and expense. It was nearly impossible to manage and this step keeps the next wave of conference leaders from taking that on in the future.

What this all means is that we were able to simplify the pricing for the conference and provide a stable, high quality conference experience with a reasonable conference registration rate for faculty ($200) and students ($150) that covers everything provided with one price: Continental breakfasts, lunches, morning and afternoon snacks, and evening social hour fare with cash bar services are included in each registration for all three days. Your registration fee also covers the rental of the facility, the presentation rooms, and the technology provided. This is a terrific rate and lower than almost any 3-day conference we know of. The major change is that the meeting will no longer offer meals at dinner time in the retreat center. But we trust that many of you will enjoy the area restaurants together and order in as you will. These changes were absolutely necessary for moving ahead, and we hope that you will continue to enjoy and appreciate the meeting despite the slightly higher registration fee this year.

Our partnership with the Bergamo Center is strong and we hope to continue meeting there for years to come. To keep that going, please book your guest room at the center. In addition, our conference registration deadline is September 7, 2021. Please register before the deadline. Go to the website for all your registration needs: https://web.cvent.com/event/3044647c-494c-4ebf-a771-c1a60ecf758a/summary

Register for the conference at the top of the page and book your rooms separately with the Bergamo Retreat Center at the bottom of the page.

After the September 7 deadline, we will construct the final program with only those who have paid their registrations for the conference. We will have a short grace period but close registration for authors who want to be on the program soon after (no later than September 21).

We hope to have a productive, exciting, and safe meeting in person in October!

If you have any questions or concerns about the conference registration, please feel free to email us at conference@jctonline.org. If you have any questions or concerns about the room reservations or meal planning, please contact the Bergamo Center at 937-426-2363. 

Many best regards,

Tom Poetter, Editor, JCT, President, Foundation for Curriculum Theory
Jing Tan and Jaimie Biermann, Conference Co-Chairs, Miami University

JCT 2021 Conference Registration Open

Registration for the JCT 2021 Conference at the Bergamo Center is now open. We hope you will join us October 7-9, 2021!

Conference Registration Link

For details about this year’s conference theme, Curriculum as Luminous, see the call for proposals on the website.

Please note that the link above is only for the conference registration. Once you have completed your conference registration, you can use the link below to check room availability at the Bergamo Center.

https://bgc.retreatportal.com/events/f?p=101:2:5392101899770::::PROGRAM_ID:1312

This year, all room reservations are made directly with the Bergamo Center. JCT is not handling room reservations. All questions about guest rooms should be made to the Bergamo Center at 937-426-2363.

2021 JCT Conference Submissions Portal Open

The submissions portal for proposals is now open!

Please submit your proposal via Cvent Services using this link:

http://www.cvent.com/c/abstracts/30ab1f6e-9253-4cd1-b0bb-c30863adffdb

We have extended our proposal submission date and will now be accepting submissions through July 26, 2021.

(You will need to upload a 500-word (maximum) proposal when you are ready to submit)

2021 JCT Conference

Dear Friends,                                                                                              April 2021

The Journal of Curriculum Theorizing will host its 41st conference gathering at Bergamo on October 7-9, 2021. We decided to host the conference in person this year even though there may still be some who have difficulties traveling to the meeting. We are looking forward to connecting with those who can come and are committed to creating a safe, dynamic, and strong conference experience. 

The Call for Proposal information details can be found at www.jctonline.org . We intend to open the portal for submissions by April 23, 2021 through July, 19, 2021. Our theme this year is “Curriculum as Luminous.”

We ask you to consider where scholars in the curriculum field see, feel, understand, know, want, create, mistake, and treasure “light” in the work and its manifestations in the world, in educational settings and others, where so much of our day-to-day existences are at stake. We invite participants to enter into complicated conversations with/for us about the presence or not, the intensity or not, the importance or not of “light” and/or “luminosity” in the curriculum field. How do curriculum theory and practice light the way or not?

We have some exciting changes this year in our partnership with the Bergamo Center. The registration fee now includes attendance for all the conference sessions, access to the Keynote addresses, a daily continental breakfast, a daily on-site lunch, and between session snacks. Registration for all three days of the conference is $200 for university faculty/teachers/ community members and $150 for graduate students.  Given our small size and overhead for holding the conference, we are not able to offer a daily rate. 

This year, the Bergamo Center now has its own registration portal for the on-site guest rooms.  If you wish to book a guest room, you will need to do so with the Bergamo Center. A link to booking rooms will be available soon. JCT staff and volunteers are no longer involved with guest room rentals or signing up for roommates for the Bergamo Center guest rooms. As always, there are also other hotels in the area if you do not wish to stay on-site. 

The financial and logistical costs of including a virtual version of the conference in tandem with the face to face meeting are beyond our means. We have decided to commit our time, talent, and energy to offering an outstanding face to face experience.  We must have 75 paid, registered participants by August 15, 2021 to finalize our commitment to hold an in-person conference at the Bergamo Center, or we will have to cancel the meeting. So please consider submitting a proposal for a paper and/or panel session and planning to join us for the weekend  in October.  We promise that if you decide to participate we will put together a great meeting with you.

Best regards,

Tom Poetter, Editor, JCT

Kelly Waldrop, Managing Editor, JCT

Kristan Barczak, Program Chair, 2021

JCT Conference Proposal Due Date Extended

Thank you to everyone who proposed a session for the conference by the August 5 deadline. We had a strong turnout of proposals. But we are leaving the submission portal open through this coming Friday, August 12 and encourage others to submit a proposal before that date.

Call for Proposal Submission Link: https://www.cvent.com/c/abstracts/2b8fb670-cc70-459d-9ee1-2d2636c7fa28

We are looking forward to a great meeting in October.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email us at conference@jctonline.org

Many best regards,

Tom Poetter, Editor, JCT, President, Foundation for Curriculum Theory

Jaimie Baker and Jing Tan, Conference Co-Chairs, Miami University