Student Workshop—Reconsidering John Dewey: Education and the Current Crisis of Democracy

Stefan Neubert is Professor of Education, Director of the Center for International Relations, and Director of the Dewey-Center at the University of Cologne. Professor Neubert has published extensively on the relationship between democracy and education as well as on the work of John Dewey. He most recently co-edited the book New Studies in Deweyan Education: Democracy and Education Revisited (Routledge 2020), which offers a contemporary perspective on some of Dewey’s most influential writings. Professor Neubert is a strong supporter of international teacher training and a leading researcher on philosophical and educational issues with a focus on cultural and political theories such as constructivism, pragmatism, and deconstructivism.

René V. Arcilla is Professor of Philosophy of Education at New York University's Steinhardt School.  He earned a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Chicago.  He is the author of numerous articles and of the books, For the Love of Perfection: Richard Rorty and Liberal Education (New York: Routledge, 1995), Mediumism: A Philosophical Reconstruction of Modernism for Existential Learning (Albany: SUNY Press, 2011), and Wim Wenders’s Road Movie Philosophy: Education without Learning (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020).  His scholarly and teaching interests include philosophy of education, liberal learning, existentialism, and modernism.

Jim Garrison is a Professor at the School of Education at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Blacksburg). His primary research topics include the philosophy of education and philosophical pragmatism. His books include Dewey and Eros: Wisdom and Desire in the Art of Teaching (Teachers College Press, 1997); John Dewey's Philosophy of Education (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012); Teaching with Reverence (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012), and most recently Empirical Philosophical Investigations In Education and Embodied Experience (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018). Professor Garrison has been an active member of the John Dewey Society, serving as President from 2007 to 2009.

Judith M. Green is Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University in New York City, where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate students in courses about ethics, social and political philosophy, African American philosophy, Native American philosophy, feminist theory, environmental studies, and urban studies.  She has authored many essays and books on the topic of American pragmatism, including her forthcoming book, Pragmatist Political Economy: Deep Democracy, Economic Justice, Complex Sustainability, Positive Peace. Judith Green convenes monthly meetings of the New York Pragmatist Forum, which welcomes presentations of work in progress.

Naoko Saito is Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University. Her area of research is American philosophy and pragmatism and their implications for education. She is the author of The Gleam of Light: Moral Perfectionism and Education in Dewey and Emerson (2005), and co-editor (with Paul Standish) of Education and the Kyoto School of Philosophy (2012), Stanley Cavell and the Education of Grownups (2012), and Stanley Cavell and Philosophy as Translation: The Truth is Translated (2017). Her most recent publication is American Philosophy in Translation (2019).

David W. Woods is an urban sociologist and city planner who specializes in urban and political sociology, global civic engagement, contemporary social movements, and urban planning.  Dr. Woods is currently the Deputy Director of Planning for the City of Stamford, CT.  Since leaving Fordham, he has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in urban planning and sociology as an adjunct professor at NYU (2013 to present), Queens College, New School University, Rutgers University, and Southern Connecticut State University (where he taught as a Visiting Professor). His most recent work and writings focus on democratic urban planning and community participation, such as in his article his article, “A Pragmatist Philosophy of the City: Dewey, Mead and Contemporary Best Practices,” published in Cognitio-Estudos, Vol. 9, No. 1 (July 2012).