Registration
All attendees are required to register for the conference in order to gain access to the presentation sessions and receptions. Registered presenters and guests must wear their badge (provided at conference check-in) at all times during the conference.
Presenter Registration
If you have been accepted to present at the Macksey Symposium, please log in to the application portal and complete your registration payment by January 31, 2026.
Conference registration for presenters includes access to all receptions, meals, events, and presentation sessions for the entire symposium, plus a swag bag and an invitation to publish in the Macksey Journal. Please see draft schedule below for more information about what is included.
Guest Registration
Those attending the symposium as a supporter (not presenting) have the option to purchase a one-day or a two-day pass. All guest passes (both one-day and two-day) include access to the welcome reception on Thursday evening. Non-presenting guests may register beginning on January 2, 2026, using the Guest Registration portal. Please note, presenters may NOT use this link to register for the conference.
Advance registration is mandatory for all guests. Any unregistered guests who arrive at the conference will be turned away. Guest registration will remain open until we reach venue capacity. It is highly recommended that all guests register by January 31 in order to guarantee a spot. Guest registration will close on March 1.
2026 Registration Costs
For presenters:
- $150 by January 15 for early registration
- $185 by January 31 for regular registration
For guests (not presenting at the conference):
- Friday pass: $85 (includes breakfast, lunch, all Friday presentation sessions, keynote address, and keynote dinner reception)
- Saturday pass: $65 (includes breakfast, lunch, book signing, and all Saturday presentation sessions)
- Two-day pass (for both Friday and Saturday): $125 (includes breakfast and lunch both days, all presentation sessions, keynote address, keynote dinner reception, and book signing)
Travel and Accommodations
Participants are responsible for their own travel to and from Baltimore, and their accommodations on-site. We have a limited number of scholarships available for presenters requiring financial assistance to attend the conference. Instructions for requesting a scholarship are included in the notification of acceptance to the conference.
Conference Hotels
All presenters traveling from out of town are asked to reserve a room in one of the two conference hotels, the Inn at the Colonnade and The Study at Johns Hopkins.
Book a room in the Inn at the Colonnade
- $179/night for single-occupancy (one king bed)
- $179/night for double-occupancy (two queen beds)
- These special rates are available only within our room block, while supplies last. Rooms must be booked by February 19, 2026, to receive this rate.
- You may also book by calling 410-235-5400 Monday through Friday, 9am to 4pm, and asking for the Sales Department. Be sure to mention the JHU Macksey Symposium.
Book a room in the The Study at Johns Hopkins
- $209/night for single-occupancy (one king bed)
- $219/night for double-occupancy (two queen beds)
- These special rates are available only within our room block, while supplies last. Rooms must be booked by February 12, 2026, to receive this rate.
Both hotels are located directly across the street from the Johns Hopkins University campus, which serves as the venue for the symposium. Please see the map below highlighting the conference hotels and venues; a full map of the Homewood campus is available here. A mobility shuttle will be available for those with accessibility needs. Presenters and guests who choose not to stay in one of our conference hotels will be responsible for their own transportation to and from the conference venue.
Getting to Baltimore
We recommend that if you are flying you arrive at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI). For train travel, we recommend arriving at Baltimore Penn Station. Transportation is not provided to/from the airport or train station; however, public transit options are available:
- From the airport, you may take the MARC Train – Penn Line to Penn Station ($6), or take the Light Rail ($2) northbound to Mt. Royal and walk to Penn Station. Tickets for both may be purchased at the airport.
- From Penn Station, you make take the free Charm City Circulator – Purple Route – northbound to 33rd Street.
Keynote Speaker
The keynote speaker for the 2026 Macksey Symposium is Dr. Sophia Rosenfeld, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania.
Drawing from Dr. Rosenfeld’s latest book, The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life (Princeton, 2025), her keynote address will explore the long history of the invention of choice — in consumer activity, religious freedom, romantic life, politics, and the ideals of human rights — paying particular attention to the lives of women, those often with the fewest choices, who have frequently been the drivers of this change.
Dr. Rosenfeld will deliver the keynote address, titled “Living in the Age of Choice,” on Friday, March 20, at 5:00 pm. She will also hold a book signing on Saturday, March 21, from 9:00 to 10:00 am. Copies of her book will be available for sale on site.
About Dr. Sophia Rosenfeld
Sophia Rosenfeld is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History and former chair of the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches European and American intellectual and cultural history with a special emphasis on the Enlightenment, the trans-Atlantic Age of Revolutions, and the legacy of the eighteenth century for modern democracy.
Her latest book is The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life (Princeton, 2025), a finalist for the Cundill History Prize and a New York Times Editors’ Choice. It explores how, between the 17th century and the present, the idea and practice of making choices from menus of options came to shape so many aspects of our existences, from consumer culture to human rights, and with what consequences. She is also the author of Democracy and Truth: A Short History (Penn Press, 2019), Common Sense: A Political History (Harvard, 2011), which won the Mark Lynton History Prize and the Society for the History of the Early American Republic Book Prize; and A Revolution in Language: The Problem of Signs in Late Eighteenth-Century France (Stanford, 2001). Her articles and essays have appeared in leading scholarly journals, including the American Historical Review, the Journal of Modern History, French Historical Studies, and the William and Mary Quarterly, as well as publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Dissent, and, frequently, The Nation. From 2013 to 2017, she co-edited the journal Modern Intellectual History. In 2022, A Cultural History of Ideas, a six-volume book series covering antiquity to the present for which she was co-general editor with Peter Struck, appeared with Bloomsbury and won the Association of American Publishers’ award for best reference work in the humanities. Her writing has been or is being translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Hindi, Korean, and Chinese.
Rosenfeld earned her B.A. in History from Princeton University and her Ph.D. in History from Harvard University. She has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, the Mellon Foundation, both the Remarque Institute and the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU, the Institute for Advanced Studies in Paris, and the American Council of Learned Societies, as well as visiting professorships at the University of Virginia School of Law and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris). Prior to arriving at Penn in January 2017, she was Professor of History at Yale University and, before that, the University of Virginia. She also served a three-year term from 2018 to 2021 as Vice President of the American Historical Association, where she was in charge of the Research Division. In 2022, she held the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the North at the Library of Congress, and she was also named by the French government Officier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques. In 2025, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Learn more about Dr. Rosenfeld and her work on her personal website.
About the Macksey keynote address
Every year, the Office of Undergraduate Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity at Johns Hopkins University invites a keynote speaker who is doing trailblazing work in the humanities to inspire the next generation of scholars to forge their own paths as humanities researchers. Recent speakers include Julius Fleming, Sami Schalk, and Kellie Carter Jackson.
Symposium Schedule
The tentative schedule for the 2026 symposium is as follows. Please note that this schedule is subject to change.
Thursday, March 19:
5:00 pm – 7:00 pm: Conference registration and welcome reception at the Baltimore Museum of Art (heavy hors d’oeuvres provided)
Friday, March 20:
8:30 am – 9:45 am: Breakfast and registration (breakfast provided)
9:45 am – 10:00 am: Opening remarks
10:10 am – 11:20 am: Session 1
11:35 am – 12:45 pm: Session 2
12:45 pm – 2:05 pm: Lunch and networking (lunch provided)
2:05 pm – 3:15 pm: Session 3
3:30 pm – 4:40 pm: Session 4
5:00 pm – 6:30 pm: Keynote address
6:30 pm – 8:00 pm: Reception and meet-and-greet with keynote speaker (dinner provided)
Saturday, March 21:
8:30 am – 10:00 am: Breakfast and registration (breakfast provided)
9:00 am – 10:00 am: Book signing with keynote speaker
10:10 am – 11:20 am: Session 5
11:35 am – 12:45 pm: Session 6
12:45 pm – 2:05 pm: Lunch and networking (lunch provided)
2:05 pm – 3:15 pm: Session 7
3:30 pm – 4:40 pm: Session 8
4:45 pm – 5:00 pm: Closing remarks
Presentation Tips
Your presentation should be 7-10 minutes long and should cover your original work in the humanities. The most common mode of professional academic presentation in many fields is reading aloud a short version of a research paper you’ve written, accompanied by a PowerPoint or other slide presentation. If you plan to read aloud, you should aim for a paper of about 1,200-1,500 words, but be sure to practice and time yourself to make sure you’re under 10 minutes. Alternately, you may simply speak from notes or from memory as you present your slides. The Macksey Symposium does not allow poster presentations.
You will be grouped with three other presenters working on similar themes, and after each of you has presented, there will be time for questions from the audience for all of the speakers in your session.
Conference Program
The 2026 conference program will be made available in February, after all presenters have registered.
Please click the first button below to access the 2025 Conference Program, which includes a detailed schedule of events and an overview of the panels offered in each session. For a full list of presentations included in each panel, with titles and names of presenters, please click the 2025 Session Details button.