At the end of this dizzying year, and on the occasion of my fiftieth birthday, I offer my reflections on the last twelve months in terms of work—reflections that, to quote Rick Blaine, "don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world," where matters of much greater importance are going on. <gestures wildly at everything> Nevertheless...
I went into my work frustrations in my update last month, so I won't belabor the point here. Suffice it to say that this is my eleventh and final year as department chair, and I'm very much looking forward to returning to full-time teaching and writing as of next July 1. This year I designed a new introductory/survey course in legal philosophy, and I hope that it, together with the upper-level legal philosophy course I regularly teach—retitled "Jurisprudence" to reflect how I've been teaching it for years—will become part of my regular teaching rotation, along with other courses in philosophy and economics. (I taught law-and-economics this semester for the first time in years and enjoyed it, despite the Zoom setting, and I'm hoping to continue teaching that, and resume the economics-and-philosophy course I introduced 20+ years ago, more regularly going forward.)
Although everything that happened in 2021 made it very difficult to write, I did manage to get more done than last year; what's more, I became more productive as the year progressed, which leaves me cautiously optimistic heading into 2022.
1. I wrote two chapters for edited volumes coming out next year and welcomed the publication of one written last year, for which I thank all the editors who invited me to contribute.
I wrote "Panther Virtue: The Many Roles of T’Challa” for Black Panther and Philosophy, edited by Edwardo Pérez and Timothy E. Brown, coming out in February 2022 from Wiley-Blackwell.
I also wrote "A Kantian Perspective on Teaching Ethics to Economists" for Handbook of Teaching Ethics to Economists: A Plurality of Perspectives, edited by Craig Duckworth, Ioana Negru, and Imko Meyenburg, coming out from Edward Elgar later in 2022 (I believe).
In September, Jonathan Wight and I revived the Economics and Ethics blog, which has since highlighted new developments in the area, usually at least once a week.
Earlier this month I started blogging at The Comics Professor again on interesting ethics-related content in current superhero comics (and I hope to blog there weekly going forward).
And all year long I maintained twice-weekly posts at The Virtues of Captain America Blog, which is now halfway through Cap's 1990 appearances after 3½ years of blogging, resulting in 364 posts so far.
3. My signal achievement this year was finishing A Philosopher Reads Marvel Comics' Thor: If They Be Worthy, which will be released in 2022 ahead of next summer's Thor: Love and Thunder film. (UPDATE: It's now available.) It's an exploration of the seven years of Thor comics written by Jason Aaron and drawn by Esad Ribić, Russell Dauterman, and others, in which the original Thor suddenly finds himself unworthy of wielding his mighty hammer Mjolnir, only to see a new Thor emerge, eventually revealed to be Jane Foster, who must struggle with her own unique issues while saving the universe (and dealing with Odin). In this short volume, I use this fascinating tale to discuss the various meanings of worthiness, how it feels to lose it, and how one can reclaim it—which requires a more nuanced and somewhat paradoxical understanding of worthiness, suggested by the comics themselves. (See more about this book here.)
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Thinking ahead to 2022: I look forward to finishing my current book project—an introductory ethics textbook using superhero examples—as well as a handbook chapter on the philosophy of punishment. Then I will pick up work on two other book projects: a long-delayed discussion of antitrust, which is even more relevant these days than when I started it, and a deep dive into the Fant... well, perhaps I should hold off on talking about that for a while.
I had little reason to write this other than that it has been three months since my last post... three dreadfully long and eventful months in the real world, while little seems to have changed in my tiny corner of it (other than my hair). All the things I wrote last time about difficulties focusing on anything when the coronavirus continues to spread around the world—increasingly so in parts of the U.S. the last month—still hold true, but have been magnified since the #BlackLivesMatter protests against police brutality began after the tragic death of George Floyd.
You know all this, of course... but what else to say?
I'll be brief: My productivity is of a pace with that reported in the last post (along with the corresponding malaise for that and many other reasons). I finished or abandoned all of the smaller or shorter things to my to-do list, and am now focused on keeping my Captain America blog current and working on my next superhero-and-ethics book, which ideally will be finished (or close to it) by the end of summer. This one will be a bit different than my Captain America or Batman books: Rather than looking at a character's overall approach to ethics, it will be focused on one particular idea connected with them (and which happens to be very meaningful to me as well). Also, one of the book proposals I mentioned in my last post led to a contract, and I've started planning for that project, with work in earnest to start in the fall. (And I'm awaiting word on the other proposal, the first draft of which I just sent to my editor a week ago.)
Other than that, I'm managing affairs for my college department over the summer, adapting to a constantly changing budget outlook ahead of a precarious fall semester, and updating my course while adapting it for the online format. I did find time to guest on a podcast, Good Is in the Details, hosted by my good friend Gwendolyn Dolske, discussing Batman and ethics, with a follow-up on Captain America coming soon. As always, I'm trying to stay offline more, even though my sense of FOMO is heightened and rationalized by the crucial, historical nature of everything happening at the moment.
I hope you have whatever kind of summer you can manage; try to stay positive and focus on the good; and please, please take care of yourselves and others by wearing a mask when you're out and about. Not all heroes wear masks, but everyone who wears a mask is a hero.
This was a difficult year's-end review to write. 2019 was not a good year for me, neither professionally nor personally, and although I did have a good number of things come out, based on past efforts, I produced very little new material over the last twelve months.
“More Harm Than Benefit: The Ramifications of the Neglect of Rights in Economics,” in Wilfred Dolfsma and Ioana Negru (eds), The Ethical Formation of Economists (Routledge), pp. 71-91
The final piece above was written this year, as was a book review for a journal and a very short piece on nudge for an online site (both forthcoming next year, perhaps). In terms of blogs, I wrote my usual complement of posts for Psychology Today, including a post based on my Batman book originally posted at The Comics Professor, and kept up with my Virtues of Captain America blog (although my backlog is not what it used to be). Finally, I wrote a nudge paper for a special journal issue that didn't work for the reviewers and a few chapters for the antitrust book I worked on in the spring but set aside (twice), and I finished the background reading for the first of two superhero books I am writing for Ockham Publishing (who published my Civil War book in 2016).
Looking ahead to next year, I plan to write the superhero book mentioned above (and start background work on the second), finalize plans for an academic trade book on economics and ethics (and write an invited handbook chapter on same), and continue to work on the antitrust book (which I've begun to refer to as my "white whale").
It's been a strange year so far in terms of work (both writing and school), so the true updates in this post will be few, and instead I'll focus on things coming out in the near future.
My main project since the beginning of the year has been my antitrust book, but I did not make as much progress on it as I'd hoped, so after some hiccups (and thanks to the patience of my editor), I will be taking the summer to finish it. (Speaking of antitrust, I had the pleasure recently of attending a talk by Jonathan B. Baker, whose new book, The Antitrust Paradigm, I'm eagerly awaiting.) I did, however, manage to write an invited essay for a new law-and-economics journal (tentatively out this fall) and a short book review for another journal, and I have started working on an invited symposium paper on nudge (specifically, proposed ethical guidelines for their use) for a political science journal.
The academic trade book proposal I mentioned in my last post—which would have collected and elaborated on my thoughts about adultery based on my Psychology Today posts on the topic—didn't get picked up, but I plan to write something longer on the topic nonetheless. As far another book in the works, I'll save that until the end...
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I have a few things coming out this year, one of which (as you can see above) showed up on my doorstep the morning of the day before Easter: Batman and Ethics, which is available now as an ebook and will be released in US in paperback in early May (the 6th or the 13th, depending on what site you're looking at), earlier some other places (26 April in the UK, apparently). There is now a dedicated page for it here, which explains what I'm on about, and includes a quote from an early review by Armond Boudreaux at his great blog A Clash of Heroes.
Although I do not yet have a copy in my hands, this summer will see the release of The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics, involving several dozen brilliant scholars over 27 chapters (including mine, “With All Due Respect: A Kantian Approach to Economics"), all of which I was honored to edit. I also have a dedicated page for this here, and my introduction is available at SSRN.
I also have several chapters coming out this spring in other people's books:
Coming at the end of May is Wilfred Dolfsma and Ioana Negru's edited volume, The Ethical Formation of Economists (Routledge), including my chapter “More Harm Than Benefit: The Ramifications of the Neglect of Rights in Economics."
Also out at the end of May is Holger Strassheim and Silke Beck's Handbook of Behavioural Change and Public Policy (Elgar), including my chapter “Nudging – Ethical and Political Dimensions of Choice Architectures.”
Also out since my last post is “On the Relationship Between Economics and Ethics,” in Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi (available at SSRN), followed in the same issue by a response from John B. Davis, who contributed to the Oxford handbook as well. (Speaking of contributors to the Oxford handbook, Virgil Storr and Ginny Choi have a book coming this summer titled Do Markets Corrupt Our Morals? that I strongly encourage you to check out, and which may or may not carry a blurb from yours truly.)
I also had my customary posts at Psychology Today and my ongoing efforts at my blog The Virtues of Captain America, which is steadily approaching its 100th post. And finally, appropriate given the impending release of Avengers: Endgame, I recently found the Chinese edition of The Avengers and Philosophy, which I didn't think was due until 2020 but seems to have appeared early. (Keeping my eye open for the planned Chinese edition of Iron Man and Philosophy too.)
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Going forward, while I wrap up the antitrust book and the nudge paper, I will be starting the "arduous" task of re-reading and note-taking for my next superhero-and-ethics book, a long-term project with no firm completion date (on agreement with the publisher). This will be a true labor of love, and my dream project since I started doing this sort of thing. I'm keeping the details tight to my vest for the time being, but if I do my job right, it should be fantastic.
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)
...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)
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).
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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!
This will be a short update because I haven't done much since my last one, given the hectic start to the fall semester. (I know, likely excuse.) I do, however, have a lot to accomplish in the coming months, so I'm posting this as a way to clear the deck, so to speak, in preparation for the busy months to come.
The most time-consuming tasks (outside of college work) dealt with production on two books coming out this year. I reviewed the copyedits for one sole-authored book, and also coordinated the review of copyedits for The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics, liaising with over two dozen contributors as well as the copyeditor. I've been told to expect page proofs for both books in December, a fact I'm trying to use to inspire diligence in writing before then.
Speaking of which... as I mentioned in the last post, I have two conference presentations in early January to prepare for (both of which I've begun), one on a Kantian view of the market and state for an Association for Social Economics session at the ASSA meetings, and the other a commentary on Leo Zaibert's fantastic new book Rethinking Punishment for the Eastern APA meetings.
New to this update are two new commitments. The first is a monograph tentatively titled The Problems with Antitrust, under contract with Rowman & Littlefield International (to be included in my series On Ethics and Economics), in which I will expand on previously published criticisms of the moral foundations and implications of antitrust (such as this article). I promised to have this done by the end of February, after which I turn to the second, a presentation for the PPE Society meetings in late March on the ethics of the economics of the family, on which I touched in this article as well as my chapter for the handbook (generally on Kant and economics), but have never explored at length.
There are a couple more conferences in the spring I'm considering attending and possibly presenting at, which is a big change from recent years when I backed off from conference travel. (Don't ask me why... I haven't figured it out yet.)
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Unfortunately, my plan to devote a certain amount of time each day to writing never got off the ground, partially because I didn't have a significant writing project (with most of the last two months being spent reviewing copyedits and occasionally writing short pieces for various websites or blogs), and also due to campus responsibilities and various personal matters. Now that I do have such projects (especially the book), and administrative duties at school have lessened (being heaviest through September and October), perhaps I can develop a routine... or rather, I need to develop a routine, and stick to it (a problem I addressed in the first Psychology Today post mentioned above).
This update is coming a bit later than I would have liked, but I wanted to get some things done first, and there's something I couldn't talk about publicly until recently. (There's actually something else coming soon that I can't quite talk about yet, but I didn't want to wait for that too! UPDATE: here it is!) So here we are, almost exactly in the middle of summer... and let me tell you what I've been up to since my last update at the end of March.
By the way, the picture at the top of the post is actually not the view out of my window, but it is what I imagine about when I think about retirement. (Sigh.) It's my happy place, wherever it is.
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Just yesterday, I submitted the manuscript of The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics to my editors, all 27 chapters, 995 manuscript pages, or 282,327 words of it. (I immediately tweeted the news with the GIF to the right, which shows what I'm still doing today.) I've done a lot of edited volumes, some with co-editors but most of them by myself, but this was by far the largest and most involved project I've been involved with. I've been told that there will be a page at Oxford's site for the book fairly soon, so I'll hold off on further details until then (which will likely be posted at Economics and Ethics, natch). From what people tell me, we managed to finish it fairly quickly, for which I'm grateful to all of my contributors—including the one who bet me it wouldn't be finished until 2020. (He should have known better: even my co-edited volume on procrastination was delivered on time!)
My scholarly output was fairly limited the last few months to editing the handbook (and writing my chapter and introduction for it), but I did manage to write a short piece on the relationship between economics and ethics for a journal symposium (which was well timed, helping me to think through some issues I was planning to discuss in the handbook introduction anyway), and do the normal amount of journal article refereeing and book proposal reviewing.
And oh yeah, I wrapped up the academic semester too. Here's a photo from commencement day, with my indispensable administrative assistants Florinda and Joan, who actually run my department. (I never gave much thought to my own graduations, but I've come to appreciate them more and more since I became a department chair.)
I am mulling several possible academic projects now that I wrapped the handbook, one of which may have been proposed to a press and may be under review as we speak. (Maybe.)
More recently, I launched my new blog I've been hinting at for a while, The Virtues of Captain America, which serves as an online complement to the book of the same title. As explained in the About the Blog page, my plan is to go through every appearance of Cap from his Silver Age revival in 1964's Avengers #4, exploring his ethical behavior as reflected in every marvelous issue. Some comics will have more ethical content than others, of course, but I have fun with all of them.
As you can see at the right, the first three posts are currently live: Avengers #4 (March 1964), Avengers #5 and Fantastic Four #26 (May 1964), and Avengers #6 (July 1964). Soon, we'll get to his solo adventures in Tales of Suspense, which began in issue #59 (November 1964), but we'll begin with his guest appearance in issue #58 the month before. I have about 50 posts stockpiled, and I hope to keep this rolling for quite a while, posting two or three times a week.
I will be mentioning the new blog—and possibly also my next superhero book, which is almost in production at long last—next week when I speak for the first time at San Diego Comic-Con. (Crazy, right? Definitely crazy.)
I'll be speaking at two panels (because one wouldn't be crazy enough):
The Friday panel, "An Evening with Batman's Brain," will be a reprise of the event held at Victoria University in March 2016 (recounted here) with E. Paul Zehr (Becoming Batman) and Travis Langley (Batman and Psychology), plus Lee Meriwether, Michael Uslan, and Paul Levitz, and moderated by Aaron Sagers. (Note that participation can change up to the last minute.)
I imagine this will be quite an experience; I've only been to one major con (New York Comic-Con in 2011), and I've never spoken at one. (Needless to say, I couldn't have finished the handbook at a better time!) UPDATE: See this post for my SDCC experience.
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As I mentioned above, I should be able to discuss my upcoming book on superheroes and philosophy very soon [here it is!], so watch this space for more on that... assuming I survive San Diego! Until then, enjoy yourselves and please be kind.
It's been a strange three months, both in the world outside my window as well as the one within it. But work continues, as it always does and must, and here I'll fill you in on what kept me busy since I last checked in.
My main project this semester is editing The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics, the work on which is going very well. Most of the chapters are in and revised, and the quality of the chapters from my contributors is outstanding. (I only hope my own chapter will stand up to the rest!)
Alongside that, I wrote a chapter for a edited book on the ethical formation of economists, a book review for a journal, a write-up for another journal of my comments from an author-meets-critics session at last year's APA Central meetings, and a smattering of manuscript and article reviews.
I also wrote three new posts for Psychology Today, all on love and relationships:
I still haven't worked out what I plan to do when the handbook is finished, but one possibility is that writing my chapter on Kant for the handbook will inspire me to work up some recent thoughts for a follow-up to my book Kantian Ethics and Economics. If I have another scholarly book in me, it's most likely this one.
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On the popular writing front, I did begin working on the comics blog project I described in my last update, crafting posts without actually posting them (until I assemble a critical mass to make it worthwhile). So far it's been more of a distraction than anything else, albeit a pleasant one, but I think I'm going to keep it up for a while. I'm going through a character's appearances in order from the beginning, writing on the ethically relevant aspects of each issue, but unfortunately there wasn't always a lot of interest in term of ethics in the early stories, so I'm trying to move through them more quickly so I can get to the "good stuff" in later issues.
In books news, I wrapped up production on Doctor Strange and Philosophy, which is due out in May, and I'm still waiting to hear news about the book that I wrote last summer on another superhero. I'm itching to write another book on a particular character to whom I could give the same treatment as I did for Cap and the hero I wrote about last summer, but that will be a major commitment that I will consider once the handbook is done (and I see how the blog project works out).
And of course, once I find an approach I'm satisfied with, I will definitely write a book on these four fine folks, whose return to the world of comics in August made big news today. That remains my dream book project, but until I find a strong theme to base it on, I'm going to sit on it, and just look forward to August (and the prospect of a Marvel Studios film down the road).
I've been putting off writing this post for a while — not because I'm disappointed with what I did this year, but because I don't yet know what I will do next year (aside from finishing one major project begun this year), and that has me feeling very uneasy. But more on that to come... let's see what I managed to accomplish this past year (aside from my day job).
1. The Decline of the Individual: Reconciling Autonomy with Community, which was written in the spring and then went through a ridiculously rushed production process over the summer, was published by Palgrave in September. (It was scheduled for August publication, if you can believe that. I still can't.) I wrote about this book and the writing process behind it here, and my friend Dante brilliantly described the production process here. (I also constructed the index that there "just wasn't time for": you can find it here.)
3. A sole-authored book on a superhero and ethics (in the vein of The Virtues of Captain America), which I wrote mostly during the summer and completed in the fall, is under review for classroom adoption potential and is planned to be published by Wiley-Blackwell in 2019. (Will this particular superhero still be around by then? I sure hope so!) I wrote about this book, the process behind it, and the reason for being so coy about its subject, here.
Currently, I'm in the midst of production for Doctor Strange and Philosophy and editing The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics, for which I already have a handful of finalized chapters and which I hope to finish by the middle of next year. Other than that, aside from a few things I've discussed casually with editors at various presses, I have no firm plans for the books in the future, and that is a strange feeling. (But more on that later.)
ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS
As I've said for the last several years, I'm shifting my work away from short pieces and toward books, and this year reflects that. Although a decent number of articles and chapters written last year (or earlier) came out this year, I only wrote two book chapters this year (and have just two to write next year).
Published this year but written earlier (although the first two were revised this year) are:
“Preferences All the Way Down: Questioning the Neoclassical Foundations of Behavioral Economics and Libertarian Paternalism,” Oeconomia, 7(3), pp. 353-373.
Accepted this year and forthcoming — the first written last year, the second this year — are:
“Nudging – Ethical and Political Dimensions of Choice Architectures,” forthcoming in Handbook of Behavioural Change and Public Policy, edited by Holger Strassheim and Silke Beck (Edward Elgar).
"The Otherworldly Burden of Being the Sorcerer Supreme," forthcoming in Doctor Strange and Philosophy.
Finally, in progress are chapters for two edited books, one on Spider-Man and his villains and another on ethics and economics, and next spring I will write my chapter and the introduction for the handbook. (After that... who knows?)
ONLINE WORK
I included this category even though there is very little to account for, other than a few posts at Psychology Today and The Comics Professor. I always hope to blog more — and still do — but rarely find I have anything to say. (That may soon be changing, though... see more below.)
PRESENTATIONS/LECTURES
Not much to report here either: I only gave two presentations in 2017, both at the Central Division meetings of the American Philosophical Association in March. I have no travel planned for next year; I think I'm skipping next week's ASSA meetings for the first time since I began going to 1996, and I already turned down one conference invitation for 2018.
LOOKING FORWARD
I really can't improve on what I wrote last year: "Little has changed since I invoked Tolstoy five years ago at The Good Men Project. I'm still not sure what I'm doing, what I 'should' be doing, or what I want to be doing."
When I told one of my best friends recently that I have nothing planned to do after the handbook is finished next year, he told me, "do what you really want to do." But he knows full well that that's my problem: I still haven't figured out what I want to do. (Pacing around my apartment isn't one of them, but here I am!) I keep a list of things I could do — various topics I could write on, as well as book projects I've discussed with editors at different presses — but none of them excites me at the moment. And then there's that novel I've been telling myself I'd write when I get done with other things, but that's such a huge shift in focus... I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet. (But maybe soon.)
There may be a light in the distance. however. In my last update, I wrote this (originally from my "comeback" post at The Comics Professor, a comeback that lasted all of two posts so far), partly in response to my declining interest in the current state of superhero comics and also looking towards my future activities:
I've been thinking a lot lately about diving back into the past comics I love, whether Captain America, Batman, the Fantastic Four, or others, and blogging in a more systematic way about them, taking each issue or storyline and writing about what I love about it, whether there's something of philosophical interest there or not. Maybe I'll just geek out about how cool the art is, or how a moment made me laugh or cry. Maybe I'll even do a podcast about them, something like The Fantasticast or the Nerdsync podcast—not that I can do that any better than Stephen and Andrew or Scott do, but I'd do it my own way, whatever they may be. Just an idea I've been knocking around, something to get excited about.
Since the time I wrote that, I received two very gratifying and humbling messages, one from a college professor and the other from an instructor in the United States Army, both of whom have used my Captain America book in their classes. This news affected me deeply — especially the one from the army — and confirmed my thoughts about focusing more on comics in general and Captain America in particular, including developing some online content to reinforce and supplement the book, as well as extending the approach to other heroes (such as I did with the book I wrote this summer). So this is likely what I'll be doing next year (aside from the handbook), though it still feels too amorphous at this point to seem "real."
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In general, I realize I don't need to plan the entire next year and have projects nailed down, and that ideas will come to me eventually, but this is the first time in years that I don't have several projects stacked up going into the new year. And I think that's why I look back on 2017 and worry that my 2018 won't be as productive. (There's also the question of why my productivity matters so much to me, but let's ignore that elephant in the room.) Instead of being pleased with what I accomplished this past year, I'm afraid that it's my last "good" year, that I'm "done." And when work is all there is... well, you can fill in the rest. (This also answers that question above.)
Finally, to address my best-laid plans about keeping a routine as laid out in last year's wrap-up post... well, I didn't, at least not in the sense of keeping to a certain schedule or routine. I did, however, work on my two books most every day while writing each of them, so regularity, more than routine, seems to be key for me. I also kept a book journal for the summer book (but not the spring one, for some reason), and this helped reinforce my progress and keep me on track. (No Steinbeck-style ennui this time, amazingly.) I suspect this may be why I need to be working on a "big project," something I can work on every day — it seems that's how I work best and am most satisfied with what I do.
We'll see what happens... and in the meantime, I wish you a fulfilling 2018, whatever that may mean for you!
Yesterday evening I emailed the manuscript for my latest superhero-and-philosophy book to my editor, who will then send it to instructor-reviewers to assess its potential for course adoption. As with my Captain America and Civil War books, this book was written for general readers, but the publisher wants to test the waters for class use as well, so we'll see what happens with that.
As readers of these updates and my Twitter account know, I've been coy about the subject of the book. The book isn't planned to be released until 2019, and there are other people who do this kind of thing (and do it very well), so I'm wary of inviting them to beat me to the punch. I can tell you, however, that the book has an approach similar to The Virtues of Captain America, exploring the moral code of a popular superhero while making a broader point about our ethical decision-making. While Cap can come off as "too" good, the hero I deal with in this book does not, which lets me delve more into issues of moral conflict and consistency. In that sense, the book serves as a nice companion piece to the Cap book—so much so that the publisher actually suggested we title this one The Vices of..., but I thought that was going a little far!
The last time I gave an update, I had completed my work on the book for the summer, at which point I felt I was almost done and had 92,000 words written. As the fall semester began, I worked here and there throughout September, adding 10,000 words, and did a quick pass-through in early October, adding about 2000 more. At the end of October, I split the two huge files (Part I and Part II) into four chapters each, and the chapters into sections, and then began the fine editing: filling gaps in content that I kindly left for myself, reinforcing the broader point of the book as often as I could, and trying to cite as many comics as possible (433 at latest count). In the end, I had 113,248 words, definitely the longest book I've ever written and nearly twice as long as each of my Palgrave books (including The Decline of the Individual, which I wrote earlier this year and was published since my last update).
Again, I say whew.
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While this book was my main activity the last several months (outside of teaching and chairing), I did also manage to write a few posts for Psychology Today:
I've been thinking a lot lately about diving back into the past comics I love, whether Captain America, Batman, the Fantastic Four, or others, and blogging in a more systematic way about them, taking each issue or storyline and writing about what I love about it, whether there's something of philosophical interest there or not. Maybe I'll just geek out about how cool the art is, or how a moment made me laugh or cry. Maybe I'll even do a podcast about them, something like The Fantasticast or the Nerdsync podcast—not that I can do that any better than Stephen and Andrew or Scott do, but I'd do it my own way, whatever they may be. Just an idea I've been knocking around, something to get excited about.
In other words, my next major comics project will likely not start out as a book, although a book may eventually come out of it. We'll see.
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The near future brings some academic work: writing a chapter for a book on ethics and the "making of an economist," due by the end of the year, and then my major work for the rest of the academic year, continuing to edit and write for The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics, my most ambitious editing project to date. (In the meantime, I'll be overseeing production of Doctor Strange and Philosophy, which is planned to come out in spring 2018.)
I hope to check in again before the new year. I hope you enjoy the upcoming holidays, and stay warm and safe.
