Book Launch: Ambedkar, Dewey, and the Evolution of Pragmatism in India

Join Scott R. Stroud as he launches his new book, The Evolution of Pragmatism in India: Ambedkar, Dewey, and the Rhetoric of Reconstruction (Chicago, 2023), in conversation with Prof. Sumit Guha, historian of South Asia.

Many know that the Indian thinker, politician, and activist Bhimrao Ambedkar thought highly of his teacher at Columbia University, John Dewey. But what more can be said about the importance of Dewey for Ambedkar’s creative anti-caste thought? How might Ambedkar’s work on social democracy and Buddhism be seen as a new form of pragmatism responsive to the problems in India?

Scott R. Stroud is an associate professor of communication studies and faculty affiliate of the South Asia Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. He serves as the Program Director of Media Ethics at the Center for Media Engagement. He is the co-founder of the first “Center for John Dewey Studies” in India at Savitribai Phule Pune University.

Sumit Guha is a specialist in the deep history of Asia and teaches at the University of Texas. His last book was Tribe and State in Asia Through Twenty-five Centuries.

This event is free and open to the UT and general public.

Sponsored by: South Asia Institute, Humanities Institute, Department of Communication Studies, Department of Rhetoric and Writing