Lunchtime Talks

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Last Updated: May 05, 2026, 01:42 PM

John Dewey top center in a large group photo

About the Series

The Center for Dewey Studies is the home of research, publishing, and outreach focused on the life, work, and legacy of the American philosopher and educator John Dewey. Our Lunchtime Talks series include speakers researching Dewey and related thinkers, work in the pragmatist tradition, and other work in a broadly Deweyan spirit from a variety of fields. 

Video Archive (Playlist)

Past Speakers

  • Steven Fesmire (Radford University), "Moral Fundamentalism, Stupid Decisions, and the Ends-Means Continuum" (Flyer)
  • Matthew J Brown (SIU), "What is Pragmatist About the New ‘Pragmatist’ Philosophy of Science?" (Flyer)
  • Fergus Selsdon Games (Cambridge University; CDS Visiting Fellow), "The Peril of Stability: Dewey in 1960s Educational Thought"  (Flyer) 
  • Piers H.G. Stephens (University of Georgia), "Pragmatic Ecologism: William James and Environmental Philosophy" (Flyer) 

  • Roger Ward (Georgetown College), "Dewey, Meliorism and the Task of Community" (Flyer) (Video)

  • Crispin Sartwell, "Realism, the Characteristically American Philosophy" (Video)

  • Stephen Houchins (SIUC), "Dewey's Philosophy of Language: Sources Past and New" (SCRC Alwin C. Carus Research Grant Recipient Talk) (Video)

  • Dan Hicks (University of California, Merced), "Defusing the Democracy Defense: Scientists as Epistemic Representatives" (Flyer) (Video)
  • Juan Manuel Saharrea (UCCor-Argentina / Texas A&M), "The Experimentalist Approach in Dewey’s Theory of Democratic Education" (Flyer)
  • Kollin Fields (Greenville University), “War, Education, & Democracy: The Competing Views of John Dewey and Albert Jay Nock” (Flyer)
  • Shi Jin (Fudan University), “Dewey and Heidegger: Overcoming the Tradition From Human's Practical Life” (Flyer)
  • Philipp Dorstewitz (AURAK), “Digital disembodiment: Pragmatism, crypto anarchism and new participative relationships.” (Flyer)