John Dewey

John Baldacchino is Chair of Arts Education at the University of Dundee in Scotland. He served as Associate Dean and Professor at Falmouth University in England; as Associate Professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York; as Reader at Gray’s School of Art in Scotland, and as Lecturer at the University of Warwick in England. He is the author of papers, articles, chapters and books on the arts, philosophy and education. His books include Post-Marxist Marxism: Questioning the Answer (Ashgate 1996), Easels of Utopia: Art’s Fact Returned (Ashgate 1998), Avant-Nostalgia: An Excuse to Pause (2002); Education Beyond Education: Self and the Imaginary in Maxine Greene’s Philosophy (Peter Lang 2009); Makings of the Sea: Journey, Doubt and Nostalgia (Gorgias 2010); Art’s Way Out: Exit Pedagogy and the Cultural Condition (Sense 2012), John Dewey: Liberty and The Pedagogy of Disposition (Springer 2013) and Mediterranean Art and Education (Sense 2013). He just finished co-editing a book of essays on the work of Kenneth Wain (with Duncan Mercieca and Simone Galea). His Mediterranean aes- thetics project, of which Makings of the Sea was the first volume, is on course, with the second volume Composed Identities: Sound, Number and Desire planned for completion between 2014 and 2015.

• Introduction, Gently Roaring.- 1. What’s Deweyan?.- 2. Liberty’s practice.- 3. Open philosophy.- 4. Knower makers.- 5. Growing socially.- 6. Education’s art.- 7. Schooled quandaries.- 8. Learning to be.

John Baldacchino has presented an original engagement on John Dewey's much written about work in this short and economically written book. The freshness of the novel perspectives he creates on the political and educational writings of the great pragmatist philosopher provide challenging and, often, instructive, reading. Kenneth Wain, Professor of Philosophy of Education, University of Malta This short text provides a highly engaging and beautifully written reassessment of Dewey's work, locating it in the wider intellectual and philosophical discussions about education, politics and life. Without being apologetic, John Baldacchino gives a sympathetic reading that shows the ways in which Dewey's work still raises important questions for education today. A refreshing contribution to Dewey scholarship. Gert Biesta, University of Luxembourg