2019 NEPES Call for Papers
Describing the educational necessity of uprooting moments for deep learning, educational philosopher Ann Diller writes:
“I, for one, need to be stopped in my tracks long enough to become so aware of my ignorance that I realize I cannot continue as I have been...For when someone is willing to be perplexed and torpified by their significant realizations, she or he will, I believe, almost inevitably also experience perspectival shifts which open up more room for new angles of vision and expanded investigations into unexplored territory” [1].
Here, Diller describes an ending and a beginning, an ending to a known and comfortable view and a beginning of something unknown. Endings and beginnings populate our intellectual work as well as our material lives. Indeed, schools are governed by endings and beginnings, exemplified, perhaps, in prevalent discourses of transition: from one activity to another, to and from the cafeteria, from grade to grade, within transition plans, etc. Endings and beginnings are both quotidian and potentially deeply disruptive. Whether experienced in our ways of thinking or in our material lives, endings and beginnings offer up both opportunity and challenge. How do we navigate endings? How do approach beginnings? What are our intellectual and affective responses to endings and beginnings? What can moments or eras of transition teach us about ourselves as embodied humans?
As NEPES enters a new era of collaboration and engagement across the Northeastern U.S., we are afforded an opportunity to reflect not only on the Society’s beginnings and endings, but also on the pressing questions that these temporal concepts bring forth. With this call, NEPES invites work that explores endings and beginnings, broadly construed, and potentially guided by the following questions:
What is an ending? What is a beginning?
What does it mean to be located at or in an end or beginning? Where are we when
we are located between an end and a beginning?
How do we prepare students to cope with endings and beginnings?
In what ways are our experiences of and with endings and beginnings embodied?
How do temporal concepts organize and naturalize our existing schooling practices?
How might non-dominant temporal frameworks challenge these practices?
How do notions of development presuppose and impose endings and beginnings
onto children and youth?
What can local and global histories and herstories teach us and teach our students
about endings and beginnings?
How might theorizing about futurity complicate the aims of education, the practices of schooling, or our conceptualizing about educational growth, progress, achievement, and success?
To what extent is the educational process, or ought it to be, a beginning, an ending, or a travel from beginning to ending/ending to beginning?
What endings and beginnings have informed our collective work in this Society, in philosophy of education more broadly?
NEPES seeks papers from scholars of any rank or career stage that respond to the theme, whether as specific or broad interpretations. In addition and alternatively, we also invite paper and panel proposals on any topic that deepens our collective understanding of philosophy and education.
[1] Ann Diller, “Facing the Torpedo Fish: Becoming a Philosopher of One’s Own Education,” in Philosophy of Education 1998, ed. Steven Tozer (Urbana, IL: Philosophy of Education Society, 1999), 7-8.
Proposal Guidelines
Due Date: June 15, 2019
Please submit proposals by email to: nepes2019submissions@gmail.com. Proposals may be submitted as either 1) Paper Proposals or 2) Panel Proposals.
Papers
A traditional feature of our conference, paper sessions provide a context in which 3- 4 individual papers can be presented by authors and subsequently discussed during a question and answer period.
How to propose a paper:
In the body of your email, please include the following: Name(s), institutional affiliation (or independent scholar), postal address, email address, and phone number of the author(s).
In a single Word document or PDF, please include:
Title of the paper
Description of the paper no more than 500 words, please describe the topic, approach/methods, synopsis of arguments/findings, and significance of the paper.
Panels
Panel sessions provide an opportunity for a collection of scholars to discuss their thoughts on interrelated and abiding projects. This promises to be a rich space for innovative and challenging ideas.
How to propose a panel session
In the body of your email, please include the following: Names of panel participants, institutional affiliations (or independent scholar), postal addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers of all the panelists.
In a single Word document or PDF, please include:
Title of the panel
Description of the panel:In no more than 1,000 words, please describe the topic, perspectives, and significance of the panel. In this, please also include a description of the contributions of each panelist.
*Note: In instances of strong compatibility and fit, the Program Committee may decided to accept and group paper proposals within panel sessions. Submitted proposals may also indicate a willingness to be so grouped.
Please direct any questions to NEPES Interim Vice President and Program Chair Ashley Taylor at ataylor1@colgate.edu.