John Dewey in Baltimore: Past, Present and Future
Kimpton Monaco Baltimore Inner Harbor
Baltimore, MD (USA)
March 6-8, 2025
The 81st conference of the John Dewey Society, co-sponsored by
the Masters in Liberal Arts Program, Johns Hopkins University,
and held in collaboration with the Philosophy of Education Society Annual Meeting.
This year, JDS is again partnering with the Philosophy of Education Society (PES) for a coordinated conference. JDS events start on Thursday, March 6th. PES officially kicks off on Friday, March 7th.
The Hotel: Our conference hotel is the Kimpton Monaco Baltimore Inner Harbor, a highly desirable location — on the corner of West Baltimore and South Charles streets, near the city’s beloved Inner Harbor, a mecca of family-friendly attractions, alfresco restaurants, and happening nightlife venues.
2 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
(443) 692-6170
For hotel reservations: PES 2025 Annual Conference Booking Link
(Room rate is $149/night)
Meeting Venues: On Day 1, Thursday, March 6th, of the John Dewey Society Conference, we will meet on the campus of Johns Hopkins University (Dewey’s doctoral alma mater) from 8:30 – 5:00 pm. Lunch will be provided for all registered John Dewey Society members. We will move to the Kimpton Monaco for a 6:30 pm Reception (sponsored jointly by JDS, PES, and Myers Press), followed by the John Dewey Lecture, featuring Denise James, at 8:00 pm.
All sessions on Days 2 and 3 (March 7th and 8th) will take place at the Kimpton Monaco, with papers sessions and panels parallel to PES offerings. Sessions are scheduled throughout the day and evening. JDS participants are welcome at all PES presentations, including the plenary sessions.
John Dewey Society events are free and open to the public. However, all presenters must be dues paying members. Lunch for registered JDS members will be provided on March 6th and are invited to the evening reception. Please register for the Conference, RSVP for the Member Lunch, and join or renew your membership.
If you plan to participate in the Friday and Saturday events with PES, please note:
PES breakfast, coffee break and receptions are not available except to those who actually register for PES. We strongly encourage those who are not already PES members and who are attending the Friday (7th) and Saturday (8th) sessions at the Kimpton Monaco to register for PES at a discounted cost by contacting Barbara.stengel@vanderbilt.edu. This will trigger an email invitation to register at the PES member rate from Natasha Levinson, PES Executive Director. (You may also want to consider joining PES in any case!)
The joint PES & JDS program is now available!
Travel to Baltimore and the Kimpton Monaco Inner Harbor:
The nearest airport to Baltimore is Baltimore (BWI) Airport which is 8.3 miles away. Other nearby airports include Reagan Washington (DCA) (38.3 miles) and Washington Dulles (IAD) (50.8 miles). We recommend flying into BWI (Baltimore-Washington International Airport) for easy access, but understand that, for international colleagues, there may be cost or convenience reasons to fly into Reagan or Dulles.
Those living in the Northeast Corridor may also want to consider AMTRAK to Baltimore Penn Station.
From BWI to Inner Harbor:
An Uber will cost $30-40, and will take 20-25 minutes.
Both the Light Rail and MARC train are transportation options from BWI Marshall Airport, but they have different routes, frequencies, and stations. In general, public transport will take about an hour.
Light Rail: The Light Rail is operated by the Maryland Department of Transit and provides service to downtown Baltimore, Timonium, and Hunt Valley. The Light Rail station is located outside the lower level of the terminal building, next to Concourse E. The Light Rail fare is $2 each way.
From a local who uses light rail: Reliability is a little spotty though they did just implement real-time tracking- download the Transit app to see real times. Make sure of the schedule- it doesn’t run 24/7. Ticket machine right inside the door to the terminal,or use the Charmpass app- you buy the ticket and get on, it randomly gets checked onboard (maybe once every 10 trips in my experience). On your return to the airport make sure you take the train that says “BWI” on the front, there are two southern terminals, don’t get on the Cromwell/Glen Burnie one!
MARC: The MARC train is a commuter rail system operated by Amtrak and Alstom under contract with the Maryland Transit Administration. The MARC Penn Line operates between BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport Train Station, Baltimore’s Penn Station, and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The MARC shuttle runs between the airport terminal and the MARC station every 10–15 minutes, but has limited weekend service. Local insight: You might want to take MARC to the airport because it runs more often.
From Dulles and/or Reagan to Baltimore Inner Harbor:
An Uber will cost over $100–!50 and will take just over an hour.
Public transport will take more than two hours but will be substantially cheaper. Take the commuter rail (Virginia Breeze from Dulles or DC Metro line from Reagan to Washington DC Union Station, and then take the MARC to Baltimore (this will require at least one additional bus).
From Hotel to Johns Hopkins University on March 6th:
Uber and Lyft are available. The cost will be approximately $10 and it will take 12-15 minutes. There are several public transport options for a cost of $2. The trip will take 20-25 minutes.
Outstanding Paper Awards
The John Dewey Society, in collaboration with Educational Theory, is pleased to announce the JDS/Educational Theory Outstanding Paper Award to be conferred on an author whose conference paper, as submitted and presented, achieves the highest level of quality in the service of the shared purposes of the John Dewey Society and of Educational Theory: to foster the continuing development of educational theory through intelligent inquiry and to stimulate discussion of educational concepts and aims among educators. The JDS Conference Program Committee will collaborate with the Educational Theory Editorial Team to determine the Award. The author will receive a prize of $500, funded jointly by JDS and Educational Theory, and the designated outstanding paper will be published as a featured article in the journal. This prize is awarded annually. Details can be found here.
The John Dewey Society invites paper and alternative session proposals for its annual meeting, to be held in Baltimore, MD in tandem with the Philosophy of Education Society Annual Meeting (Kimpton Hotel Monaco Baltimore Inner Harbor). Come join us for scholarship, community, and experiential learning in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor!
To acknowledge the wide impact of Dewey’s work across philosophical scholarship, community organizing, education, and more, we issue a broad and open call. We seek submissions that take up the ideas and spirit of Dewey’s thinking in new and creative ways, as well as proposals that examine the roots of that thinking. We welcome papers and session proposals that apply Deweyan approaches to engage philosophical issues and analyze social, political, and educational situations. We request proposals that use a Deweyan lens to provide direction in challenging times and environments. We invite papers and session proposals that continue the Deweyan legacy by opening new conversations – critical and constructive — about the continued relevance of the American Pragmatist tradition and its iterations throughout the world.
In 2025, we meet in Baltimore and, in a pragmatist spirit (see Spencer 2020), we seek to take seriously the reality of that actual place across time as we frame our conference theme and, by extension, our presence in Baltimore.
Call for Proposals are due November 15, 2024!