Revisiting The Public and its Problems: A Call for Paper Proposals

The John Dewey Society invites submissions for a special panel of papers revisiting Dewey’s most comprehensive work of political theory and democratic politics, The Public and its Problems (1927). Dewey wrote the book as a response to the deeply embedded skepticism of participatory democracy and public life expressed by democratic realists of the era like Walter Lippmann, author of The Phantom Public (1925). In response to Lippmann, Dewey (1927) offered a thorough analysis of early 20th century democracy and some of his best thinking on both the challenges of, and hopes for public life in democratic societies. The book remains a key text for pragmatists but particularly for pragmatists working in education, as the challenges and threats to the ideals of democracy in education — as it relates to curriculum, pedagogy, educational policy and politics, for example — abound today as never before. Indeed, we live in an era in which at times it seems the language of public ideals, public purposes, and public education itself seems naïve and hopelessly outdated. This, then, is a productive time for educational philosophers to revisit this key text in Dewey’s opus, one of his most important statements on democratic ideals, processes, and problems. We invite educators, philosophers, and educational theorists to engage the arguments, multiple interpretations, and contemporary implications of The Public and its Problems.

Submit all proposals (prepared per instructions below) for individual papers, panel or symposia via email with an attachment as a Word document. All proposals should be received on or before Monday, November 26, 2012, via email to Kathleen Knight Abowitz, President-Elect, John Dewey Society and Professor, Department of Educational Leadership, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Proposals accepted for presentation on the John Dewey Society program for the AERA conference will be notified by January 25, 2013.

Conference proposal guidelines

Part 1 (submit in the body of your email message):

(1.) Title of your proposal (2.) Format of your presentation (i.e, paper session, panel or symposium) (3.) Your name, title, institutional affiliation (should be the contact person) (4.) Your address, phone, email, fax number (5.) The name(s) of other panel or symposium members, if applicable.
(6.) An abstract of up to 100 words.


Part 2 (in a Word document with all identifying information removed for “blind” review):

(1.) Title of your paper or panel or symposium
 (2.) Provide a brief summary of your topic in two pages, up to 500 words.
Provide a brief descriptive summary of how your topic will be developed and/or its line of argument. Explain the significance of your topic. List several major references upon which you will draw in developing the topic in order to “place” the scholarly conversation.