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What's Happening at the Center for Dewey Studies
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June, 2007
By the end of 2007, two new titles of interest to Dewey scholars will be available on CD from InteLex Corporation. The first, a supplement to the three volumes of the Correspondence of John Dewey, will provide access to letters and other items pertaining to the disposition of Dewey's literary estate, the formation and activities of the John Dewey Foundation, and the formation and activities of the Co-operative Research on Dewey Publications project, now known as the Center for Dewey Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
The second title, a supplement to the thirty-seven volume Collected Works of John Dewey, will provide access to various essays, addresses, reports of addresses, and interviews that were not included in the Collected Works, but whose publication recent scholarship now warrants.
In addition to generous grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, this project has also been supported by Southern Illinois University Carbondale, the John Dewey Foundation, and private donors.
During 2007 we will also publish a new edition of Works about Dewey. This exhaustive bibliography of books and essays about the life and work of John Dewey will be available on CD from Southern Illinois University Press. This project was made possible by a generous grant from the John Dewey Foundation. Center editor Barbara Levine has already begun to collect materials for a future edition of Works about Dewey. Funding for this ongoing project is supported in part by a generous grant from the Makiguchi Educational Research Institute.
We are currently at work on an edition of Dewey's lecture notes, including extensive notes on Hegel's Logic, as well as on social and political philosophy, and ethics. This multi-year project is supported in part by a generous grant from Barbara Sawyer Koch and Donald F. Koch. Contributions are welcome, and tax deductible.
On June 13, 2007, in a ceremony in Tokyo at Soka University Japan, the title of Honorary Advisor to the Center for Dewey Studies was conferred on Dr. Daisaku Ikeda, founder of Soka University Japan and Soka University of America, and President of Soka Gakkai International. The visit to Soka University also included visits to Soka high schools and the new Center for Dewey Studies at the Makiguchi Educational Research Institute.
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Other Initiatives
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Electronic Research Assistance
In addition to the electronic version of the Correspondence of John Dewey, other resources available in electronic format to the Center's visitors include:
Our software allows visitors to perform instantaneous character-string searches of all of these documents. The current version of Works about John Dewey, 1886 – 1995 is available on CD-ROM from Southern Illinois University Press, and The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882 – 1953 and The Correspondence of John Dewey, are available on CD-ROM from the InteLex Corporation.
These electronic tools have dramatically altered research into Dewey's life and work. The Center's resources offer excellent opportunities for researchers – graduate students and mature scholars alike – who wish to explore this important period of American intellectual history.
In addition to our electronic resources, the Center houses a small research library and an extensive vertical file – some 120 linear feet – of photocopies and offprints of works about Dewey.
Since August, 1993, when we initiated our guest book, the Center has hosted more than 450 visitors from 26 countries. |
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Outreach
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Fudan University, Shanghai. The Center has been working with faculty at Fudan University to promote a Chinese Center for Dewey Studies. Professor Liu Fang Tong, the director of the Center, is directing a project that will eventually provide Chinese readers with an up-to-date translation of the entire thirty-seven volumes of Dewey's Collected Works. The Center for the Study of Dewey and American Philosophy, as it is now officially known, hosted an international conference on the contemporary significance of Dewey's thought in May 2005 as a part of its celebration of the 100th anniversary of Fudan University.
Italian John Dewey Foundation. In 2003 Professor Giuseppe Spadafora opened the offices of the Italian John Dewey Foundation in Cosenza. The Center for Dewey Studies and the Italian John Dewey Foundation have been cooperating since 1998 on initiatives at the University of Calabria (Cosenza), the University of Bologna, and elsewhere. The latest venture was an international conference on “John Dewey and the Reconstruction of Democracy” held from May 22-25, 2007 in Cosenza, Rosanno, and Matera, Italy. Participants came from Canada, Cuba, Germany, Japan, Korea, Poland, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, and the United States, as well as Italy.
The University of Cologne, Germany. Professors Kersten Reich and Stefan Neubert of the Department of Pedagogy at the University of Köln inaugurated their Center for Dewey Studies during April 2005. The event was marked by an international conference on American Pragmatism and the program of Köln Interactive Constructivism, cosponsored by the Center in Carbondale. A volume of essays based on participants' presentations at an earlier conference has been published in German and will soon be available in English. On 21 May 2007 the Köln Dewey Center hosted an international workshop on Dewey and constructivism.
Central European Pragmatist Forum. The Center will be a sponsor of the Fifth International Conference of the Central European Pragmatist Forum during the summer of 2008 in Brno, Czech Republic. Past conferences have drawn participants from Slovakia, Russia, Poland, Germany, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, as well as the United States, Finland, Canada, and South Africa. Previous meetings were held in Poland, Slovakia, Germany, and Hungary.
During 2007 new Centers for Dewey Studies will be inaugurated at the University of Szeged in Hungary, and the Jagiellonian University in Crakow, Poland.
During the twelve months from June 2006 to June 2007, the director of the Center has made presentations about the Center and its work in Beijing; Chicago; Cosenza, Italy; São Paulo, Brazil; Singapore; Tokyo; Washington, D.C., and Waterloo, Ontario.
Visiting Researchers
The Center is pleased to host visiting researchers from around the world. We are also pleased to respond to dozens of mail, phone, and e-mail inquiries each month. Since 1 January 2002 the Center's Web site has received an average of some six thousand visitors per month. During 2006-2007, the Center is pleased to host a visiting Fulbright researcher, Dr. Suzana Miovska-Spaseva, from the Republic of Macedonia.
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E-mail List-Servs and Communities
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John Dewey Discussion Group on the Internet
DEWEY-L is an electronic forum devoted to the interpretation and extension of John Dewey's philosophy. The list is open to anyone with an interest in any facet of Dewey's philosophy. Members of the forum are expected to strive for the spirit of cooperative inquiry. The broad aims of the list are to explore the merits of Dewey's philosophy, including its relations to other relevant developments in philosophy as well as other areas of inquiry which relate to the spirit of Dewey's work. New members are encouraged to introduce themselves, perhaps including a brief statement of the relevance of Dewey to their work or interests. Occasionally, list members participate in "seminars" or "close readings" of texts on or by Dewey. Posts regarding such discussions should have "seminar" in their subject heading.
A Web interface for the list is available at: http://listserv.sc.edu/archives/dewey-l.html
Or you may subscribe to the list by sending an e-mail message to: listserv@listserv.sc.edu
In the body of the message type just one line: subscribe Dewey-L YOUR NAME
If possible suppress any automatic signatures or attachments when you send the message.
The DEWEY-L discussion group is not affiliated with the Center for Dewey Studies. |
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