Mark D. White

Summer workin', did some at last... (A personal update)

I'm writing this on a Monday, and the fall semester begins on Thursday, so I'm sure I'll get all my writing goals for the summer done by then.

Ha.

I wanted to check in before school starts, although I don't have much specific to report. Nothing was finished this summer, though progress was made on several projects—not the least of them being scheduling them out. As it happens, the commitments I've made are exceptionally well spaced out in time through the end of 2024, thanks to some patient editors, and it should leave time to do smaller things as they arise. ("Should," he writes with trembling fingers.)

Besides this, there have been several new developments since I last reported:

• The chapter I completed before summer began, "Punishment and Resources," was accepted, and will be published in The Oxford Handbook of Punishment Theory and Philosophy, edited by Jesper Ryberg.
• I published three posts based on my Thor book at Psychology Today: "What Makes Thor Worthy?", "Who Should Decide What Worth Means—and If You're Worthy?", and "How Do You Reclaim Your Sense of Worth After Losing It?"
• I'll be giving my first guest lecture since 2018 in late September, at York College (in Pennsylvania), where I last visited in 2015, on the subject of Batman and ethics. (That's assuming I'm finished with jury duty obligations that start in the middle of September!)
• Finally, my biggest news is that I have agreed to prepare a revised and updated second edition of The Virtues of Captain America in anticipation of the new movie in 2024 (and the tenth anniversary of the first edition). I've planned a thorough revision of the entire book, working in new examples when appropriate, plus a new section on the implications of the recent "Secret Empire" debacle and a new chapter on Sam Wilson's (ongoing) experience as Cap. (Coincidentally, this arrived today.)

I hope you enjoy the withering embers of summer, in whatever way you can, and the impending crispness of fall, whatever form it takes for you.

This blog's title is, of course, in tribute to this fine singer and actress, gone far too soon.

My 2018 in review, and looking ahead to 2019...

I'm feeling rather ambivalent about my life these days (see here) — which is not unusual for me the last ten years or so, but still. I have, however, come to some realizations of late that may suggest a corner is about to be turned. We'll get to that in due time... in the meantime, let's see what I managed to do this year nonetheless (in addition to my duties as a mild-mannered professor for a metropolitan university).

In terms of things that were published this year (but finished earlier), I had one new edited book out this year, Doctor Strange and Philosophy, which included one chapter I wrote, and one journal article that was posted online in 2016 (and written much earlier) but was not slotted into an issue until this year (this month, actually). (A chapter on nudge that I wrote even earlier, that I thought would be in a book published this year, will be out next year.)

Much of what I actually did this year (which involved more editing than writing) will appear in 2019:

• I did most of my work on The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics, including writing the introduction and my chapter, editing the other 26 chapters, and overseeing the review of copyedits and proofs (the last one still ongoing). This should be out next summer.
• Even though it was written in 2017, I wrapped up work on Batman and Ethics this year, including making final revisions, reviewing copyedits and proofs, and compiling the index. This should be out next April.

I did write several shorter pieces that should be out next year as well...

• “On the Relationship Between Economics and Ethics,” forthcoming in a symposium on the interdisciplinary potential of economics (with a response by John B. Davis) in Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, 52(2), Winter 2018
• “More Harm Than Benefit: The Ramifications of the Neglect of Rights in Economics,” forthcoming in Ioana Negru and Wilfred Dolfsma (eds), The Ethical Formation of Economists (Routledge, 2019)
• “Criminal Justice in Gotham: The Role of the Dark Knight,” forthcoming in Damien Picariello (ed.), Politics in Gotham: The Batman Universe and Political Thought (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)

...as well as several shorter pieces that appeared this year (as well as the normal assortment of blog posts at Psychology Today and several at The Comics Professor):

• “How to Live a More Authentic Life in Both Markets and Morals,” a commentary on William Irwin's The Free Market Existentialist (in Reason Papers, 40(1), Summer 2018, pp. 59-63)
• “Restoring Social Responsibility to Inner Freedom, with Help from Immanuel Kant” and "Inner Freedom Is Consistent with Family (and Social Ties in General)," as part of the conversation on inner and outer freedom at Cato Unbound (October 2018)

Finally, I wrote a review of Eugene Heath and Byron Kaldis (eds), Wealth, Commerce & Philosophy: Foundational Thinkers and Business Ethics, which should appear eventually in the Journal of the History of Economic Thought.

On a different tack, this past summer I launched The Virtues of Captain America blog, which just celebrated its 50th post this month, and will keep me busy for many years to come (seeing that the 50th post brought us into the 1970s, and the 100th, which I will be writing soon, will only find me in 1974).

-- -- -- -- --

Looking forward, I've begun a book on antitrust, which I hope to finish next spring and should be out next fall from Rowman and Littlefield International. I'm also crafting a proposal for a short academic trade on a topic I've discussed a bit at Psychology Today, which, if accepted by the press I've discussed it with, I would write next summer. Besides that, I have a couple other academic projects in mind, but no firm plans beyond some preliminary discussions with presses.

Those projects notwithstanding, in the coming year I hope to devote myself more to writing about superheroes, not just on the Cap blog but new projects as well. Yes, I realize I said much the same thing last year, but I'm even more convinced now that this is the way to go for me, given additional feedback I've gotten from fans and friends over the past year, as well as my experience at San Diego Comic-Con this past summer. I'm hesitant to leave academic writing entirely, because it seems to be a part of my professional identity with which I have a strange push-pull relationship. I've never felt like a "serious academic," and I'm increasingly uncertain I ever could be one, but at the same time I feel I "should" keep trying to be one, even though my particular talents, such as they are, seem to be of more value elsewhere. (Let's not go down that particular rabbit-hole just yet, but my latest Psychology Today post alludes to it.)

I'll leave you with something that's been a balm to my soul lately... let's hope for a brighter year ahead!

 

Looking back on ASSA 2017

My ASSA experience this year in Chicago was less hectic but no less enjoyable than conferences past, this one more focused on reconnecting with distant friends and colleagues and re-establishing ties than hearing or presenting research. I did not present a paper this year, and I went to fewer sessions than usual, but I still felt immersed in the conference experience in a way that felt comfortable and inspired future work. (More about the latter point toward the end of the post.)

THURSDAY

I arrived at the Swissôtel in Chicago in the early afternoon, luckily before something happened that delayed shuttles from the airports that made a lot of conference attendants late to get in. After grabbing an early dinner and buying some provisions, I went to the opening plenary of the Association for Social Economics and met up with several of my longtime colleagues of the association, particularly Quentin Wodon, the incoming president, and this year's featured speaker, Kaushik Basu. Delivering his first scholarly talk since leaving the World Bank, Basu gave a fascinating talk on labor market discrimination and faced probing questions from a near-capacity audience in one of the ballrooms at the Swissôtel. I left before the reception started, so missed reconnecting with other ASE colleagues that evening, but would see them often over the next several days.

FRIDAY

After a brisk walk (1°F) to get some breakfast, I attended the first regular meeting of the ASE program. I missed the next one to visit the book exhibits, meeting with editors at several presses to touch base on ongoing and future projects (or to confirm or set up meetings for later in the conference). In particular, my Oxford University Press editor Adam Swallow was very pleased with my progress on my handbook of ethics and economics, and later at the booth we took this snap to commemorate my co-edited book with Jennifer Baker, Economics and the Virtues, which barely missed being displayed at last year's conference.

Superhero author @profmdwhite with OUP’s gatekeeper of economics @perspectives45 #ASSA2017 pic.twitter.com/V75YQmpUXN

— Oxford Economics (@OUPEconomics) January 7, 2017

After a quick lunch and coffee, I headed back to the Swissôtel and relaxed in my hotel room for a couple hours before the annual business meeting for the ASE, at which we met two of the new editors of the Review of Social Economy, and also heard incoming president-elect George DeMartino's plans for next year's ASE-ASSA program (soon to be announced). The evening ended at the annual Taylor & Francis editors' dinner, where I indulged in delicious Italian food with many old friends—always a fine time.

SATURDAY

The second full day of the conference began with the ASE presidential breakfast, where our awards are given out, including the Ludwig Mai Service Award to my longtime friend and co-blogger, Jonathan Wight. The presidential address was delivered by outgoing president Giuseppe Fontana on the topic of financialization, and a wonderful breakfast was enjoyed by all (courtesy of program director Bob LeJeunesse, who is always careful to note humbly that "I didn't cook the food").

After the breakfast, Jonathan and I took some to catch up and make some plan to reinvigorate the Economics and Ethics blog, which has survived the last year or so due to his efforts alone. Before we knew it it was lunchtime, which meant it was time for another annual tradition, lunch with a longtime friend and editor (although we've never worked together). After lunch I attended a session of the International Network for Economic Method on ethics and economics at the Sheraton, after which I dashed back to the Swissôtel for the Review of Social Economy editorial board meeting.

SUNDAY

The final day began with another annual tradition, breakfast with my Stanford University editor Margo Beth Fleming, during which we somehow managed not to discuss my follow-up to Kantian Ethics and Economics but did somehow find time to engage in intense sartorial debate. Full of pancakes and bacon, I rushed to the Forum for Social Economics editorial board meeting, but had to leave early to catch the shuttle to the airport.

OVERALL

At the end of last year's ASSA post, I wrote:

At the end of December I was completely exhausted, physically and emotionally, and seriously considered withdrawing from this meeting altogether. As you can guess, I'm glad I didn't. Not only was it a great meeting intellectually and professionally, but it was also a wonderful time socially—and for a classic introvert who dreads walking into the jam-packed hotel on the first day, and for an academic who has never felt like one, it was a surprise that I felt very much in my element throughout the three-and-a-half days.

Even if I wasn't that tired leading up to this year's meetings, I was certainly despondent, and I did nearly cancel the trip. And once again I am very glad I did not, for many of the same reasons, especially the great friendships I enjoy with my ASE members. Although I didn't attend as many sessions as in previous years, simply being in the intellectual atmosphere of the ASSA meetings did invigorate the academic side of me. I returned from Chicago with several pages of a legal pad filled with ideas for future projects, authored books as well as edited books for my two book series at Palgrave and Rowman & Littlefield International. Whereas before the meetings I was planning to focus almost exclusively on popular writing from here on out, I now think I will maintain my current fairly even balance between popular and scholarly work.

Of course, last year I also wrote, "Let's just hope that, come next December, I remember how much I enjoyed this ASSA when I fret and dither about attending." Someone please remind me to revisit this post later this year!

Looking back on ASSA 2016

Another ASSA conference come and gone, this one in San Francisco. Very busy but the most enjoyable ASSA meeting I can remember. Why? Let's see.

It certainly wasn't due to travel: even though I was on direct flight, flying between Newark to San Francisco is never fun, and I'm sorry, San Francisco, but BART makes the NYC subways look like the pristine subways of Oslo. At least the flight back was marginally better than the one there, as I was lucky—thanks to a very kind United gate attendant—to get on an earlier flight that not only got me home before midnight but also landed me an "economy plus" seat with a little more legroom.

My hotel (which also hosted the Association for Social Economics sessions) was wonderful, featuring a magnificent snack bar/coffee shop in the lobby with fine coffee (Peet's) and good hot sandwiches—and they opened at 5:30 AM. (That was the best part.) And somehow I was assigned to a corner hotel room with windows on two sides, which allowed amazing light in when the weather gods deemed it appropriate. (I showed the picture at the right to friends from NYC and they said they'd kill for an apartment like that.)

SATURDAY JANUARY 2

I flew in a day early (on New Year's Day) so I could adjust to the time difference before the first full day, which began with a lunch meeting with my editors from Palgrave, during which we discussed future books from me as well as for the "Perspectives from Social Economics" series. (I'm very happy to say that three new books were found or planned for the series during this conference.)  In the afternoon I met for coffee with an economist I knew only from Twitter, and in the early evening the conference proper began with the ASE opening plenary, which is always a chance to hear a great speaker—this year, Jan Kregel from the Levy Economics Institute—and reconnect with old friends. After that, I had dinner with another old friend, which was a very nice way to end the first, and least hectic, day of the weekend.

SUNDAY JANUARY 3

I spent the morning preparing for my presentation in the 10:15 ASE session on "Great Thinkers on Ethics, Economics, and Financial Markets," where I discussed Kant among longtime friends and colleagues who between them covered Aristotle, Smith, Mill, Keynes, and more. My talk seemed to go over fairly well and the session was very well attended (as were most of the ASE sessions this year, a credit to the program chair and incoming ASE president Giuseppe Fontana). Next I visited the book exhibits, where I caught up with editors from Cambridge, Oxford, and Palgrave (again) to discuss ongoing or potential projects. (My new OUP book, Economics and the Virtues: Building a New Moral Foundation, co-edited with Jennifer A. Baker, just missed being ready for the book display, but it was in the new catalog.)

On the way there I happened to see the awning for John's Grill, which reads in very tiny letters at the bottom, "Home of 'The Maltese Falcon'" and "Headquarters of the Dashiell Hammett Society." I stopped in on the way back, and found out that it's where Hammett wrote the book (he worked in the building next door). Amazing.

I returned to the ASE hotel to catch the end of a standing-room-only session on inequality before the general membership meeting, after which I had drinks with some friends from ASE before heading to the dinner for journal editors hosted by Taylor & Francis, where the ASE contingent mingled with other journals editors and the T&F staff, which is always a fantastic time (and the food was unbelievable).

MONDAY JANUARY 4

The last full day of the conference began with the ASE presidential breakfast, which featured a tremendous talk from outgoing president Ellen Mutari, and at which I was honored to present two ASE awards to two longtime friends, Deb Figart and Morris Altman, both of whom were incredibly welcoming and supportive to a particular newbie many years ago. Throughout the rest of the day I alternated between ASE sessions and journal editorial board meetings, after which I joined a few ASE friends for drinks and then dinner at a nearby pub.

TUESDAY JANUARY 5

After packing, I met my intrepid Stanford University Press editor for our traditional ASSA breakfast, this time at Brenda's, billed as French soul food, where I indulged in assorted beignets and a sausage-and-Swiss omelet with sausage hash and (of course) sourdough toast. I could not finish it, which is astonishing (given how much I love breakfast) and is my greatest regret from this trip! We talked about book projects and publishing industry scuttlebutt and had a fabulous time as usual.

Back at the book exhibit I met up with another longtime friend in publishing (an editor I have yet to write for), after which I jumped in a cab and headed back to SFO early in hopes of getting an earlier flight, which as you know I did.

OVERALL

At the end of December I was completely exhausted, physically and emotionally, and seriously considered withdrawing from this meeting altogether. As you can guess, I'm glad I didn't. Not only was it a great meeting intellectually and professionally, but it was also a wonderful time socially—and for a classic introvert who dreads walking into the jam-packed hotel on the first day, and for an academic who has never felt like one, it was a surprise that I felt very much in my element throughout the three-and-a-half days. Most of that, no doubt, is due to belonging to a great group like the ASE, full of amazing scholars as well as great people and good friends. (Of course, spending some time in Rasputin Music, one of the last of the "real" independent record stores and one with a dedicated and well-stocked metal section, didn't hurt either!) Let's just hope that, come next December, I remember how much I enjoyed this ASSA when I fret and dither about attending. (Wishful thinking indeed!)

Why I Edit Books

My friend Terry Clague at Routledge recently contributed a fantastic blog post to LSE’s The Impact Blog on the value of edited books. In his post he also points to a post at Pat Thomson’s excellent blog patter, where she discusses several good reasons for academics to edit books. Since I’ve edited my share of books, I thought I’d offer my own impressions on the practice, which I rather like and encourage people to think about doing.

To date I’ve edited 14 books, half of them academic and the other half in the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series; the latter are a distinctly different breed of animal, so I’ll set those aside for now and focus on the academic ones. I’m also working on two edited books at the current time and planning a third. Three of my published edited books, and one of the two in progress, are co-edited, and the rest were edited solely by me.

First, let me piggyback a bit on Thomson's post, because I agree with all of her points In support of editing books; here’s my personal take on each of them.

1. Connections. This one was essential to me. I didn’t have many contacts or a “network” when I came out of graduate school, especially because I decided to work in fields I didn’t focus on when working on my Ph.D., so I had to reach out to people I wanted to work with. I did this first by organizing conference sessions, and later by putting together edited books. Thomson is correct that the connections you make when editing books will continue to bloom: one of the contributors to my first edited book became a co-editor on a later one, a contributor to that book became a later co-editor as well, and many contributors (and co-editors) become friends and collaborators on future projects. To the extent I can be considered well-connected now, it’s because of my work in putting together conference sessions and edited books over my career, so these activities are been invaluable for that aspect alone.

2. Contribution. There are many ways to contribute to a field: certainly writing articles and books is the most obvious, but the contribution from editing books is often underestimated. I think the latter is better, in fact, if you have a very general idea of what needs to be done in a field but you don’t have the expertise to do it yourself. This is how The Thief of Time, my co-edited book on procrastination, came about: during a casual conversation with Chrisoula Andreou, a contributor to a previous book, I asked her what she was working on, and she said she was working on a theory of procrastination. Fascinated and intrigued, I asked her to point me to some background literature, and she said there wasn’t much. As Gru from Despicable Me would say, “light bulb!”: Here was an area of general and philosophical interest that hadn’t yet been explored to any length or depth. But at the same time it was a frontier that was too large for me and my friend to mine thoroughly on our own. So we decided to edit a book on the topic, bringing together a group of excellent scholars to write about on the topic of procrastination. (And we got it done early!)

3. Profile. Again, you can build a scholarly profile by writing your own work—this is obviously the most direct way to do it, provided people know about what you write—but edited books are also a great way to do it, particularly if you have a broad interest in an area but feel that you can only make a narrow original contribution to it yourself. (The same applies to editing a book series, which simply broadens the focus to an entire field or subfield rather than one topic or area within it.) Even if you don’t contribute a chapter to a book you edit, you’ll be recognized as knowledgeable in the area due to your ability to gather expert scholars and craft a book that synthesizes their work and presents it to a world as a unified statement in the field.

On that note, I think of editing books as a valuable aspect of scholarship in general, one that complements authored books and articles in helping to shape the discussion in the area. (Whether departments or universities see them this way is a different matter, of course.) Thomson emphasizes the scholarly contribution made by designing and overseeing an edited collection; I think of this as similar to curating an exhibit of multiple artists and crafting a cohesive whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. When I edit a book, I take care to make sure each chapter makes an important and unique contribution to the book, so in the end, the book stands as a unified contribution to the field that at the same time presents different viewpoints and perspectives on it. I think of it as similar to a thoughtfully assembled movie soundtrack, a compilation of songs that holds together than an album in the same way that a single artist’s album does, but provides a different kind of variety to the listener.

Recognizing the value of edited books does not mean that everyone should do it, however. Another editor/friend of mine told me once that most people are either authors or editors, but rarely both. To me, the two roles are complementary also in terms of my working life. There are times I feel more “writerly,” able to focus on my own thoughts and how to get them down on paper, and there are other times I feel more “editorly,” when I feel I can better work with someone else’s words. Maybe I spend time on an authored book in the morning, then after lunch I copy-edit a contributed chapter or work on an index for an edited book. They are equally important but very different tasks that use different “muscles,” and balancing these two types of work can help squeeze the most productivity out of a workday.

Of course, editing a book does take a different set of skills from authoring one. For one, you have to deal with a lot of people, which I regard as an upside but others may not. Contributors will be late, they’ll want to change their approach (or even their topic), or they will resist your editorial suggestions: all of which demand a certain ability to negotiate and persuade, as well as the resolve to put your foot down when the quality and integrity of the volume is at stake. Also, you must be a detail-oriented person, able to keep track of where the various contributors are in the pipeline and to coordinate with the publisher throughout the process both before and after you submit the manuscript. A co-editor can be a blessing in this, especially if you work with a friend, but a precise delineation of tasks is essential: if you and your co-editor don’t make clear from the start who is responsible for what, you’ll end up either duplicating effort or wasting time waiting for each other to do something no one agreed to do!

There’s a lot to do when editing a book, and the work involved is not to everyone’s liking. But if you like to do the work, and are able to balance these tasks with the rest of your work life, editing collected volumes can be a profoundly enriching process with many professional and personal benefits. Personally, I do it because I get to bring together a group of bright, innovative people to write on a topic that I want to see more work on—and at the end, you get to see a book with your name on it. (And that’s very cool.)