Constructing a Community of Thought : Letters on the Scholarship, Teaching, and Mentoring of Vera John-Steiner

This book validates the prolific contribution of Dr. Vera John-Steiner to the social sciences and extends her scholarship, teaching, and mentoring to a new generation of thinkers. Compiled as a companion volume to her Selected Works, the text highlights this scholar’s gifts to psychology, education, linguistics, and the arts through a collection of letters composed by students, colleagues, collaborators, and mentees. In keeping with Dr. John-Steiner’s collaborative and innovative approach, the epistolary genre invites readers into a larger thought community through personal connections, biographical vignettes, and academic expansions of her work. In sharing her commitment to social justice, readers will find themselves compelled to join the collective initiatives established by this notable scholar during the past fifty years to achieve an equitable, enriched education for all.

Robert Lake, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading at Georgia Southern University where he teaches courses in multicultural education from local and global perspectives. His expertise in music and English as a Second Language informs his research into creativity, critical educational perspectives, and the imaginative curriculum. A frequent presenter at international conferences, he is the author of several books including Vygotsky on Education (Peter Lang, 2011).
M. Cathrene Connery, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Education at Ithaca College. A bilingual educator, researcher, and advocate, she has drawn on her visual arts education as a painter to inform her research and professional activities in language, literacy, and sociocultural studies. She has utilized Vygotskian theory to articulate ethnographic accounts in Profiles in Emergent Biliteracy: Children Making Meaning in a Chicano Community (Peter Lang, 2011) and as an editor and contributor to Vygotsky and Creativity: A Cultural-Historical Approach to Play, Meaning-Making, and the Arts (Peter Lang, 2010).