PHILOSOPHY
John Baldacchino
John Baldacchino is the author of «Post-Marxist Marxism: Questioning the Answer» (1996), «Easels of Utopia: Art's Fact Returned»(1998), «Avant-Nostalgia: An Excuse to pause» (2002), «Education Beyond Education: Self and the Imaginary in Maxine Greene's Philosophy» (2008), «Makings of the Sea: Journey, Doubt and Nostalgia» (2010) and «Art's Way Out: Exit Pedagogy and the Cultural Condition» (2012), «John Dewey: Liberty and the Pedagogy of Disposition» (2013), «Mediterranean Art and Education» (2013, with Raphael Vella) and «Democracy without Confession» (2013, with Kenneth Wain). He has just completed a co-edited book on the philosophy of Kenneth Wain, to be published by the end of 2013. John Baldacchino is Chair of Arts Education at the University of Dundee, Scotland. He served as Associate Dean and Professor at Falmouth University, England; as Associate Professor at Columbia University's Teachers College, New York; as Reader (Associate Prof.) in Critical Theory at Gray's School of Art, The Robert Gordon University in Scotland and as Lecturer (Assistant Prof.) of Art Education and Cultural Theory at the University of Warwick in England.
Most acclaimed
John Dewey
1971
John Dewey was an American psychologist, philosopher, educator, social critic, and political activist. John Dewey: Science for a Changing World addresses Dewey's contemporary relevance; his life and intellectual trajectory; his basic philosophical ideas, with an emphasis on his philosophy of nature; and his educational theory, which has often been misunderstood. In addition, Dewey's pragmatism and pragmatist ethics are discussed, as are some of the criticisms that can be directed at them. Throughout the book, Dewey's ideas are related to the general history of ideas, but there is also a constant focus on how Dewey may assist us in solving some of the problems that face us in a so-called postmodern era. This book is the first to offer an interpretation of John Dewey's works with particular emphasis on his contribution to psychology. John Dewey distinguished himself by combining a culturalist approach to human life with a naturalistic one. He was an avowed naturalist and follower of Darwin, and Brinkmann shows how his non-reductionist, naturalist psychology can serve as a much-needed correction to contemporary forms of "evolutionary psychology." Dewey's psychology, however, is not an isolated element in his thinking as a whole, so the author also provides an introduction to the philosophical, ethical, and educational ideas that go hand-in-hand with his psychology. In the past couple of decades, there has been a renaissance of pragmatist ideas in philosophy, political theory, and education. Scholars are returning to the writings of William James, Charles Peirce, George Herbert Mead, and John Dewey. This book continues the fine tradition of Transaction's History and Theory of Psychology series.
Avant-nostalgia
2002
Avant-nostalgia brings together textual and visual narratives scattered around four themes: knowledge, memory, touch, and return. The text starts where the image ends. The image originates where the text is fulfilled. These are after-images of a reading of art and literature on the grounds of polity, history and geography. The narratives that emerge within the visual arts and literature chart the grounds of polity. Such grounds manifest a history that is ‘contemporary’ — in that it takes serious account of ‘our’ time — where democracy and freedom must be regarded as moral imperatives. Equally, grounds express a geography that is specific to physical and ontological spaces, where: (a) location emerges from the choices that are intended to facilitate a visitation of art; and which (b) provide grounds for a discussion of matters like anamnesis, nostalgia and aporia. The discussion retains a ‘fragmentary’ format by way of excusing the discussant from epistemological compartments.