University Libraries Promotion and Tenure Recognition

Shannon W. Sullivan professor of philosophy, women's studies, and African and African American studies

Book Title: Human Nature and Conduct

Author: John Dewey

Selection Statement:

I first read this book as a graduate student and, at the time, had no idea how important it would be to my thinking about gendered and raced embodiment. Dewey's concept of habit explains how the habits that make up an individual self are formed in dynamic relationship with their social, political, economic, physical ,and other environments. In a male and white privileged world, this means that all people tend to form sexist and racist habits in varying ways. But it also means that those habits are some of the very tools with which sexism and racism can be challenged.


Year: 2007