(Re)Negotiating Nostalgia: Building Curriculum Communities Without Consensus

Online proposal submission opens
May 15, 2010

View the Call for Proposals here.

Sensual Curriculum: Understanding Curriculum of and Through the Senses

Guest Editor: Walter S. Gershon, Kent State University

Human beings understand themselves and their environments through the senses—they are the ways in which we perceive our lives and ourselves in relation to others. We therefore make sense of our worlds literally and figuratively. However, the meanings we make through sight, smell, sound, taste and touch are context dependent, predicated as much on local and more broad norms and values as our own personal preferences. As such, where sensory perception is information that we attain through our senses, the meanings ascribed to those perceptions are simultaneously deeply personal as well as ideologically and aesthetically dependent. In short, sense making is political, one possible interpretation among many possibilities.

There has been increasing attention to arts-based/influenced understandings within education and to sensory ways of knowing in fields outside of education. Although there certainly is a history of work that considers curriculum and the senses, work that examines curriculum through the senses is far less common. This is in part due to the strength of reading human interactions and social phenomenon as “big t” Text and in part to an emphasis in curriculum studies to understanding curricular phenomenon as Text. Yet, while reading interactions and phenomena as text can be critically informative and creates the space for their deconstruction and other important kinds of examinations, this interpretive move can also serve to remove the very kinds of non-text-based sensual understandings that render bodies (as but one example) so rich in meaning and possibility.

This special issue seeks to push at current conceptual boundaries in the relationships between curriculum and the senses. Contributions to this special issue have been framed in the following manner. Roughly half of the issue will correspond to each of the five senses, examining the ways in which that particular sense intersects with questions of curriculum, writ broadly. The remaining entries will address the relationship between curriculum and the senses in a more holistic, general fashion; these pieces can, however, foreground a particular sense in order to illustrate more general curricular, sensory understandings. Attention will be paid to help ensure a diversity of fields, methods, institutions, and sensual perspectives.

Authors wishing to submit manuscripts in response to this call must have their work submitted via the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing website (http://journal.jctonline.org/index.php/jct) no later than October 1, 2010. All manuscripts will be subject to a double-blind review process. Potential authors will be notified of their acceptance to this issue by December 1, 2010 with an expected publication date of September 2011. 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. Double-spaced throughout
3. 1-inch margins on all sides
4. Written in 12 point, Times New Roman
5. Footnotes should be gathered at the end of the paper
6. 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 manuscripts should be addressed to Walter S. Gershon, the guest editor for this special issue, via email at wgershon(at)kent.edu.

The Bergamo Conference Committee would like to thank you for attending the 2009 conference. The conference committee has made every attempt to put together a meaningful and exciting conference experience. We sought to maintain aspects of the conference that have been key to its success over the years while at the same time adding new dimensions that build on the intellectual vibrancy, social networking, and relaxing atmosphere for which Bergamo is known. As we begin our thinking and preparing for the next conference, we would appreciate feedback that might help us continue to organize a meaningful and exciting conference experience.

Feel free to add comments and help us name the folks in the photos and/or the sessions that are represented.

Thanks for coming!

See you next year!

Please join us for what promises to be a very engaging conference.

Sincerely,

Greg Dimitriadis
Bergamo Conference Leadership Team

Register Online for the Conference

New Directions: Divergent Paths Through/In Curriculum Theory
October 15, 2009

This session will spotlight the work of four curriculum studies scholars, Jennifer Logue, Jennifer Milam, Nicholas Ng-A-Fook, and Jacqueline Bach. Each scholar will speak briefly about their work and its relationship to curriculum studies, opening up a larger discussion about the field and its emerging contours. This panel will highlight the multiple, complex, and often divergent pathways through and in curriculum theory today.

30th Anniversary Session
October 16, 2009

To help mark Bergamo’s 30th anniversary, curriculum studies pioneer William Schubert has organized a special spotlight session featuring his students and colleagues, past and present. Together, Schubert and his students will share their experiences and reflections on coming to Bergamo since the late 1970s in what he calls a “rolling seminar” with Bill Ayers. The purpose will be to discuss the role of Bergamo in their scholarly, professional, and personal lives. Bill Ayers will be the respondent.

Convergences and Trajectories in Curriculum Theory
October 17, 2009

This panel will feature a special, open dialogue between Janet Miller, Patti Lather, and Deborah Britzman. These distinguished scholars will reflect on key points of overlap and distinctions in their long and important contributions to the field. Greg Dimitriadis will moderate.

We are pleased to announce the call for this year’s Bergamo Distinguished Graduate Student Paper Award. All graduate students who are presenting single-authored papers at this year’s conference are encouraged submit.

The submission deadline is October 9th.

Jacqueline Bach
Assistant Professor, English Education
Co-editor, The ALAN Review
Louisiana State University
Department of Educational Theory, Policy, and Practice
113D Peabody Hall
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
225-578-6879

Obviously, with the number of requests that we have recently received, our deadline extension for paper proposals for the Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice has not been sufficient. Therefore the new deadline is August 15, 2009.

You will be notified of the decision on your proposal by August 20, 2009.

Please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any questions. We look forward to seeing you in October.

Adam Howard
Conference Chair

p.s., we can look forward to a new issue of JCT being published online around the time notifications are sent.

Submit your conference proposal

The Library of Congress was notified of the journal’s transition from print to online in the summer of 2008 and JCT was issued a new ISSN: 1942-2563.

As of April 1, 2009, the Foundation for Curriculum Theory became the sole owner of the journal, Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, and conference, Bergamo Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice, when the Corporation for Curriculum Research transferred ownership to the new organization.

Unfortunately, Caddo Gap Press continues to solicit subscriptions for the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing without having the authority to do so.

The Foundation for Curriculum Theory has no relationship with Caddo Gap Press, who worked with the prior organization responsible for editing the journal, the Corporation for Curriculum Research.

Any print subscription inquiries, including refund requests, should be directed to the prior publisher:

Caddo Gap Press
3145 Geary Boulevard, PMB 275
San Francisco, CA 94118  U.S.A.

Please direct other inquiries regarding this matter to the Foundation for Curriculum Theory.

Volume 25, Issue 1 (April 2009) features our Distinguished Graduate Student Paper from the 2008 Bergamo Conference, as well as the addition of author bios for all articles. You can now also view information about the Editorial Board on our “About the Journal” page.

Thanks for your continued support of the JCT-Bergamo community!