This collection of essays engages with the current resurgence of interest in the relationship
between American pragmatism and communication studies. The topics engaged in this collection of
essays is necessarily diverse with some of the figures discussed within often viewed as minor
or ancillary to the main tradition of pragmatism. However each essay attempts to show the
value of reading these minor figures for philosophy and rhetorical studies. The diversity of
the pragmatist tradition is evident in the ways in which unlikely figures like Hu Shi Ambedkar
and Alice Dewey leverage some of the original commitments of pragmatism to do important
intellectual social and political work within the circumstances that they find themselves.
This collection of essays also serves as a reminder for how we might reimagine and reuse
pragmatism for our own social and political projects and challenges.
