Craig A. Cunningham, Ph.D.
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Finding Useful John Dewey Resources on the Internet, part 2This is the second of three articles to appear in Insights to provide an overview of the kinds of web-based resources you can find that are related to the life and work of John Dewey. This article (and the first installment as well) are available online at http://craigcunningham.com/dewey. In the last article, I wrote about the difficulty of finding exactly what you want using search engines and I described some major web sites containing significant resources related to the life and work of John Dewey. This installment discusses some sites that are perhaps more obscure but might still be useful to those interested in Dewey’s ideas. I’ve divided this discussion into three parts: first, scholarly articles about Dewey’s ideas; second, sites devoted to general philosophical or psychological issues that have significant resources related to Dewey; and third, "fan" sites maintained by Dewey aficionados. Dewey has, of course, been the subject of numerous scholarly articles in many fields. It is quite easy to find some of these articles using bibliographic search tools such as OCLC’s FirstSearch (http://newfirstsearch.oclc.org), ProQuest (http://www.il.proquest.com/proquest/), or the Philosopher’s Index, published by the Philosopher’s Information Center (http://www.philinfo.org/). These information services usually require a subscription; your university library may be able to provide you with access. The advantage to these tools is that they index multiple publications (including articles and monographs), and their online versions allow you to craft very specific searches based on detailed criteria. Some of the sources even include full text, which is a major advantage, especially in smaller libraries which do not have extensive archives of obscure journals. The biggest limitation to the search tools just described is that they cost money. If you are an independent scholar, or your university library does not subscribe to the services, you cannot use them without paying hefty user fees. Fortunately, there are other options, some of which provide full text articles for free to anyone. Martin Ryder of the University of Colorado at Denver has a page with numerous Dewey links at http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/dewey.html. Many of the links (toward the bottom of the page) are to full-text scholarly articles about Dewey. The page is part of a very well-developed site devoted to the topic of instructional technology. Dewey enters into this topic in the realm of Theory and Philosophy of Education. One huge advantage to Ryder’s site over many others is that his links are checked regularly. If you are interested in Dewey’s educational ideas, you can find numerous relevant articles by searching the contents of Educational Theory at http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/Educational-Theory/journal_contents.asp. Full-text articles are included from 1992 to 1995, and you can search the indexes of all volumes back to 1983. Similarly, the annual Philosophy of Education (including papers from the annual meeting of the Philosophy of Education Society) can be searched for the years 1992 to 1999 (http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-yearbook/); a recent search for "dewey" returned 355 results. The web site called Materials on the Philosophy of Education (http://commhum.mccneb.edu/PHILOS/phileduc.htm) includes full-text articles related to the philosophy of education in general. Some of these articles are directly related to the work of John Dewey. Citations of dissertations related to John Dewey can be found using ProQuest (http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/search). A recent search for the word "dewey" returned 1243 citations. As mentioned above, use of ProQuest is by subscription only. If your university library maintains a subscription, it is possible that you can search the database directly from your office computer which is authorized by its IP address. The second category of sites to be discussed here are sites with comprehensive coverage of philosophical or psychological topics that also include substantial resources related to Dewey. EpistemeLinks.com has a section devoted to Dewey resources (http://www.epistemelinks.com/Main/Philosophers.aspx?PhilCode=Dewe), which includes a small amount of original information plus a large number of links to other sites. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/) does not yet have an article on Dewey (the encyclopedia is a work in progress), but a search of the articles that are on the site returned 23 files with references to Dewey. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy includes a detailed overview of Dewey’s life and work by Richard Field (http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/d/dewey.htm). The article is not, unfortunately, linked to other resources, and so while valuable as an initial source of information, cannot serve as a gateway into other resources. Kevin Decker maintains a site devoted to the topic of Public Philosophy, which includes a page on Dewey, at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/1643/dewey.html. The Philosophy Department at Molloy College maintains the Sophia Project, devoted to introductory materials about major philosophical figures and ideas, which has a page containing an introduction to Dewey and a long list of links (http://www.molloy.edu/academic/philosophy/sophia/Dewey/dewey.htm). The Real U of C site - devoted to making the argument that the University of Chicago’s traditional core curriculum ought to be preserved despite new pressures on the College to expand and attract students who otherwise would attend the Ivy League schools - includes many resources related to the Philosophy of Liberal Education, including some works by Dewey and others, for example, by Mortimer Adler, Ralph Maynard Hutchins related directly to Dewey’s work; http://www.realuofc.org/libed/libed.html). The Radical Academy includes a series on Classic Philosophers (http://radicalacademy.com/philclassicindex.htm), which includes a comprehensive essay on Dewey’s philosophy. The essay includes a series of “critical notes” which seem to take the position that because Dewey denied any knowledge of “the absolute,” it lacks rational foundation. A closer examination of the philosophical position behind the Radical Academy reveals an implicit bias in presentation of the material. (I would be interested in receiving emails containing guesses as to what that bias is.) The Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology includes an introduction to Dewey’s psychological contributions, at http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/g2699/0000/2699000097/p1/article.jhtml. The Encyclopedia Britannica has a detailed article on Dewey (http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=30675), but the article is only available to subscribers. The third category of sites to be discussed here are sites created and maintained by Dewey "fans." These sites sometimes take a scholarly approach, but may also take on a role more like Dewey cheerleading. Some of these sites are maintained by organizations that base their work on Dewey, while others are run by individuals. One generalization that can be made about sites like this (whether maintained by individuals or organizations) is that while a lot of effort goes into creating them, most of the sites are not well maintained, and often include out of date links. Having enthusiastically created a number of heavily-linked web pages myself, I can say it is quite difficult to keep up the enthusiasm to maintain a site given the propensity of other pages to disappear from their original locations! For this reason, I’ve tried to limit myself to sites that are reasonably well-maintained (or that do not have long lists of links to external sites). The University of Michigan celebrates Dewey’s years at the school with a two-part essay, found at http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/MT/97/Sum97/mta1j97.html and http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/MT/97/Fal97/mt13f97.html. The articles include pictures and a detailed discussion of the relationship between Dewey and his first wife, Alice. It also includes a couple of humorous anecdotes about Dewey’s home life. Muskingum College (the alma mater of William Rainey Harper, who brought Dewey to the University of Chicago) maintains a History of Psychology web site with biographical information about many pioneers in the field of psychology including Dewey (http://fates.cns.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/dewey.htm). The Dewey page includes a useful chronology of Dewey’s life. The Alexander Technique Center includes numerous Dewey-related resources at http://www.alexandercenter.com/jd/. The Informal Education website includes a page devoted to Dewey resources, at http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-dewey.htm. Bowling Green State University (Ohio) maintains a site devoted to a comprehensive understanding of the 1890s (http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/america.html), which includes an essay on Dewey as well as a short introduction to pragmatism and to progressive education. See http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/dewey/dewey.html. Dr. Z’s Philosophy Page includes a number of essays about Dewey’s philosophy, all by the site’s owner, Gordon L. Ziniewicz. See http://www.fred.net/tzaka/democ.html. David Hildebrand maintains a website with a great URL, http://johndewey.org, but not much content yet. Christian Lotz of Seattle University maintains a number of pages devoted to giants in the field of philosophy, including an introductory page devoted to Dewey (http://fac-staff.seattleu.edu/lotzc/teaching/seattle/classes/dewey.html). (NOTE: This link was not working as of October 2, 2003!) "Baffled by Dewey" is a page created by Richard Melling, a graduate student at Portland State University, specifically as an introduction to Deweyan educational ideas for "for teachers and students who desire to use some of Dewey's ideas, but are not ready to make sense of Experience and Education." The site is found at http://web.pdx.edu/~melling/Dewey/Index.htm. A British site designed for high school students includes a brief essay
on Dewey, along with some links and a long quote from one of Dewey’s educational
essays. It is found at http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAdewey.htm.
Across the water in Some German language Dewey resources can be found at http://www.erzwiss.uni-hamburg.de/sonstiges/dewey/deweyhg.htm, a page developed to support a seminar on Dewey held in 2000. Finally, I maintain the “Some Favorite Quotations from John Dewey” site that includes numerous quotes from Dewey’s educational and ethical writings. You’ll find this site at http://craigcunningham.com/dewey.htm. In the next issue of Insights, I will describe some very interesting web sites devoted to the claim that Dewey is at least partially to blame for the ills of modern society--and especially schools. These sites are often zealously maintained, and their similarities indicate a large and intellectually cohesive group of people with organized ideological opposition to Dewey’s ideas (or the ideas imputed to him). Craig Cunningham, the webmaster for the John Dewey Society, can be contacted at |