Mark D. White

My 2017 in review, and looking ahead to 2018...

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).

BOOKS

I started and finished three books this year: two of them sole-authored and one edited, one of them out now and the others coming in 2018 and 2019. (I also had one edited book come out this year that was finished last year: The Insanity Defense: Multidisciplinary Views on Its History, Trends, and Controversies.)

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.)

2. Doctor Strange and Philosophy: The Other Forbidden Book of Knowledge, an entry in the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series that I worked on over the summer, will be out from Wiley-Blackwell in May 2018. My first volume in the series since 2013's Superman and Philosophy, this project was a joy to put together with a couple dozen brilliant contributors and trusty series editor Bill Irwin. (The cover has not yet been posted as I write this, but trust me, it's gorgeous. UPDATE: You can see 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:

• "Dignity on the Line: The Kantian Ethics and Economics of Work,” in Fair Work: Ethics, Social Policy, Globalization, edited by Kory Schaff (Rowman & Littlefield International), pp. 19-40. (This book is also the first in my On Ethics and Economics series.)
• “Preferences All the Way Down: Questioning the Neoclassical Foundations of Behavioral Economics and Libertarian Paternalism,” Oeconomia, 7(3), pp. 353-373.
• “Judging the Efficacy and Ethics of Positive Psychology for Government Policymaking,” in The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Positive Psychology, edited by Tim Lomas, Nick Brown, and Francisco Jose Eiroá-Orosa (Routledge), pp. 532-545.
• “‘What I Had to Do’: The Ethics of Wonder Woman’s Execution of Maxwell Lord,” in Wonder Woman and Philosophy: The Amazonian Mystique, edited by Jacob M. Held (Wiley Blackwell), pp. 104-114.
• “Nudging Debt: On the Ethics of Behavioral Paternalism in Personal Finance,” in Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning, 28(2), pp. 225-234.

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."

~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~

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!

At last, another book: A mid-November update

113,248 words. (Imagine that sung by the cast of Rent.)

Whew.

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.

-- -- -- -- --

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:

• Should You "Write First, Edit Later"? (September 17)
• Do Romantic Relationships Imply a Loss of Self? Should They? (September 20)
• Alexa, Should I Ask You to Help Me Make Decisions? (October 9)
• Yes, Condemn Weinstein, But Don't Endorse a "Pence Rule" (October 12)

Finally, after a year and a half away, I returned to comics blogging at The Comics Professor, commenting on the return of the classic Steve Rogers in Mark Waid and Chris Samnee's Captain America (with a word or two about Secret Empire and "Hydra-Cap") and the surprising move of superstar comics writer Brian Michael Bendis from Marvel to DC. I hope to blog on comics more frequently from now on, as well as begin some other related projects, as I wrote at the end of the Captain America post:

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.

-- -- -- -- --

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.

Reflecting on a summer quickly coming to its end... (A personal update) [UPDATED]

(Updates in red.)

Tomorrow is my first day back at school for the fall semester, which makes today the last day of summer for me. It would seem like a fine time for an update, right?

In terms of my three tasks for the summer...

1) Drafting my sole-authored superhero-and-philosophy book was my primary goal, and I had arbitrarily chosen last Wednesday as the "completion" date (in case I needed to go into the office on Friday, and graciously allowing myself a day before that as well). That worked out nicely to 12 weeks, 6 days a week, so 72 days total. As of the end of Wednesday I had about 92,000 words written, exceeding my target of 90K words, and I still have more to write. Given that my usual concern is having enough to say, I'm pleased with meeting my target, and a bit bewildered at being in the strange position of exceeding it. It's not the normal case of writing more than I need and then having to trim it down—if anything, I need to flesh out some material as well as add one more significant section. I hope to get this additional work done in September before confronting other writing responsibilities for the fall. All in all, I'm fine with my work on this book this summer, although it was a bit more up and down than I would have liked, and I wanted to be done done. (While I just started writing this summer, this book has been in the works for years.)

2) Work on Doctor Strange and Philosophy is also nearly finished—doing final editing on the last few chapters. ('Nuff said!) UPDATE: I submitted the manuscript on September 1, four days ahead of deadline, thanks to the timeliness and cooperation of my contributors.

3) Production of The Decline of the Individual is finished as far as I'm concerned. The release date was changed from August 25 (as confirmed by the project manager on August 10) to September 15 (according a change made to the website on August 11). (When I replied to the project manager about this, the email bounced back "address unknown." Same for the production editor.) But wait.... last week the date on the website became October 15, which happens to be close to the date my editor gave me when the whole thing started. As before... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. For my part, I'm constructing a proper index for the book which I will post here; I was hoping to have it done by now, but it still needs a little work. UPDATE: I finished the index on September 4—you can find it here.

--o-O-o--

Looking back, I wish I had done the summer differently—it became so intense that I'm looking forward to the semester for relaxation! Part of my problem was not spreading out the work as well as I could have; while I worked on the authored book most every day, I didn't always keep up with other work, which then built up at precisely the wrong time (as it inevitably will). However, besides the Oxford handbook I'm editing, I don't have a commitment for any other books going forward, so things are open for next summer to consider projects I've batted around with different editors, as well as some ideas of my own.

Finally, I did have one new post at Psychology Today last week that did fairly well: "Why Adultery Is Harmful Even Before It's Discovered," elaborating on what is by far my most "successful" tweet:

This -- THIS -- is what makes adultery harmful even if it's never revealed. https://t.co/HnGMuJ9Lcu pic.twitter.com/otQiTHu5iB

— Mark D. White (@profmdwhite) August 20, 2017

--o-O-o--

Looking ahead, this semester I need to finish up the summer tasks three, and then begin a few new things. In addition to the chapter and introduction for my handbook, I'll be contributing a chapter to an edited scholarly collection on Spider-Man (focusing on Civil War), and another chapter on ethics and economics to a very intriguing new project. And most important, I will be returning to the classroom for the first time in two years. It's a long story, but it comes down to teaching too many courses for many years before I became department chair, and now having to balance that out by a certain date while being chair, which already carries reduced teaching expectations as it is.

However you're spending it, I wish you a happy and successful fall, and I'll see you next time I have something to say. In the meantime, here's Sam... just pretend it's yesterday, OK?

 

Two months down, one month to go... (Another personal midsummer's update)

Is it the end of July already?

As I did at the end of June, I'll give a brief update on things happening here...

1) The superhero-and-philosophy book I'm writing is going well. I'm in a better position than I was a month ago: I've experienced fewer down days, and as a result I'm well over two-thirds of the way toward my target word count. (I now imagine the book may be a bit longer than planned, a very strange position for me to be in.) I now expect to have it drafted by the time the fall semester starts, and then I'll do a bit of editing and revising early in the fall.

2) Doctor Strange and Philosophy is also proceeding nicely. Most chapters are finalized and looking great, and we're in the final editing stage, looking good to finish on time.

3) The Decline of the Individual: I approved the third set of page proofs last Monday, so barring any surprises, we're good to go. (The first set of proofs required around 1000 corrections, because I didn't have a chance to review copyedits; the second round, which served as proper proofs, needed only about seventy.) I've been told to expect publication "in the month of September." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The fall semester at CSI officially begins on Friday, August 25, although for me it effectively begins the following Monday, so I have four more weeks to go. As I wrap up the tasks above, I will turn to a book chapter I agreed to write (a return to Civil War from an interesting new angle) and my introduction and chapter for The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics... and thinking about future plans.

I hope your summer ends well... see you on the other side!

One month in, two months to go... (A personal midsummer's update)

It being the last day of June and all, I thought this might be a good time for a brief update...

I'm working on three projects currently, trying to do a bit of work on each one every day, especially the first and main one.

1) The superhero-and-philosophy book I'm writing this summer (hopefully to be finished by the end of August): A third of the summer in and I'm a little short of a third of my target word count, but that's fine; I got off to a slow start and had quite a few bad days in which I did nothing at all, so assuming things go at a reasonable pace for now on, there's a good chance I'll finish on time. I do need my comics, trade paperbacks, and hardcovers nearby, so no writing in coffee shops until the time comes to revise and edit.

2) Doctor Strange and Philosophy, which I'm editing this summer: This is looking very good in terms of both content and timeline (and I can edit chapters in coffee shops, so yay!). I've seen all but one draft chapter and have seen or received second drafts on most (and even third drafts on a couple). There's a nice balance of comics and the movies (live-action and animated) in the source material, and an impressive range of philosophical ideas discussed!

3) The Decline of the Individual: I'm currently reviewing page proofs, not having seen copyedits or a style sheet, so they're rough. I will have plenty to say about this rushed production process when it's over, but for now... hey, check out the spiffy cover to the right! Apparently it will be out on August 16, come high or high water (or my repeated pleas to slow things down).

Also, I have a series of three new posts at Psychology Today: "Defining Success for Yourself," "Are You Working for the Right Reasons?", and "How to Succeed in Life... Ideally, on Your Own Terms." Also, YourTango began "reprinting" some of my Psychology Today posts; you can find them at my profile page.

I'm hoping to make significant progress on the three projects over this long holiday weekend — whatever you're doing, I hope you enjoy it as well!

At last, a book: A personal update

Like a butterfly from its cocoon?

No...

Like a phoenix from the ashes?

No...

Like a tired old man rising from his dining room table?

Nailed it.

At 2:32 PM yesterday (four days after my April 30 deadline), I emailed the manuscript for my latest book, The Decline of the Individual: Reconciling Autonomy with Community, to my editor at Palgrave Macmillan. As their marketing wizards somehow gleaned, this is the third book in my "triptych" on the individual and society, following The Manipulation of Choice (on nudge) and The Illusion of Well-Being (on happiness policy), all written for popular readers. When I started the first book, I had no idea that I would generalize the argument in the second, much less broaden it even more in the third... but that's what I did.

In short, this book discusses what I see as the decline in respect for the individual in recent years, based on developments in psychology, neuroscience, economics, sociology, technology, business, politics, and law. All of these fields have, in different ways, contributed to doubts about individuals' cognitive competence and moral competence, which have led to a devaluation of the individual as considered by government, business, and ourselves, and the elevation in its place of the pursuit of collective interests without the traditional safeguards for the rights and dignity of individuals. To counter this, I suggest a conception of the person as "individual in essence, social in orientation," based on Kant's ethics (and introduced in my scholarly book Kantian Ethics and Economics). This way of thinking about individuals reinforces their cognitive and moral competency and replaces the specter of "radical individualism" with a more nuanced combination of individuality and sociality, all intended to restore the appropriate balance between individual and social interests which has been upset in a recent years.

Ha, I said "in short," didn't I?

It is a very difficult book to summarize in just a few words. It has been very hard these past months to explain to family, friends, and colleagues what this book is about, especially compared to its predecessors. With this one, I couldn't just say "it criticizes nudges" or "it questions happiness policy" — "it examines the decline of the individual" is a little more vague.

This book was also much harder to write and took much more out of me, and I've tried to figure out why.

1) In general, it was a harder argument to wrap my head around and organize in a way that is (hopefully) clear to the reader. It took a long time to feel I had a good handle on the flow of the book, especially because I do draw on a wide range of ideas that don't fit naturally with each other. Also, I hadn't written this argument elsewhere before, whereas with the last two books I had the chance to rehearse their general arguments in earlier works (albeit for different audiences). Parts of it existed in various forms in other books, articles, and blog posts of mine, but not together in anything resembling this book.

2) I wrote most of this book during the academic semester, whereas I only wrote, at the most, initial bits of my earlier books then. Granted, I didn't teach this semester, but I still chaired my department, which involves a lot of paperwork, meetings, and email, not to mention the occasional crisis. It was a relatively light semester in terms of meetings, and my extraordinary department staff was tremendously helpful with paperwork and crises, but nonetheless it did seem especially difficult to write most of this book (particularly this book) during the semester.

3) The writing process itself with this book was different. When I write books, especially those for popular audiences, usually I draft the book straight through from beginning to end, to maintain a narrative flow and consistent tone. The writing itself takes longer because I'm inserting quotes and references, and polishing prose as I go, but when it's done it's pretty much done. With this book, however, I wrote the basic argument first, with little attention paid to language and almost no quotes or cites. On the second pass, I smoother out the language and inserted many quotes and references, which added 50% more words to the manuscript, and on the third pass I further massaged the language (and added a few more last-minute quotes and references).

This was a strange way to work, and I'm not sure I would do it again. In general, I'm not a "get the words down and make them pretty later" kind of writer, but with this book I came closer to that method than with previous books. The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that I had to do this one the way I did. Because I didn't have the entire plan of the argument settled from day one, I had to explore that aspect of the book first, constructing the framework and making sure it stood on its own before I could install the plumbing, electricity, and so on. When I got to the second stage, I went deep into the various fields I draw on to flesh out each section and chapter, which may have been too much to do in the first stage when I was trying to focus on the basic structure of the entire argument. Finally, the multiple passes enabled me to tie the material from the different areas together better than I might have been able to if I'd followed my normal linear approach.

4) I also used my time differently with this book. With my previous ones, I would spend most of my free time on the current project, working on it around classes, meetings, or time with the kids. But as I explained in my last update, for the first two and a half months I worked on this book, I devoted about two hours each morning to it, and then would do other things (or sometimes nothing) the rest of the day. It wasn't until April that I devoted all my free time to the book, taking advantage of a week and a half of spring break in the middle and a lighter-than-usual meeting schedule the rest of the month. It did help to be immersed in the book for the final month, as I had been with the earlier books; I never really felt I was writing a book until then, but merely working on a book, if that makes sense. I say that in full realization that many writers are forced to work that way and they manage to produce fantastic work; for that they have my eternal admiration and respect, because I found it very difficult to re-engage with the book each time I returned to it after so long.

5) Finally, I didn't start a book journal until the end of March when I started the second stage (major editing). It definitely would have helped me stayed engaged if I made an effort to reflect on my daily progress, especially when I spent so little time (relatively speaking) on the book each day with so much time in between.

-----

So what's next? Even though I cleared my plate at the end of March to devote April to finishing the book, I did put off a lot of things that came in the last month (making time only for things that needed to be done right away, such as writing letters of recommendation and editing timely blog posts). That means I have some things to catch up on, such as writing referee reports, working on edited books, and end-of-the-semester work at school, before I start my next book in June, a return to superheroes and philosophy, which I plan to write this summer in my usual fashion. The comics have been read, the notes have been taken and organized, and the outline has been drawn up and fleshed out, so all that remains is to think of the words and put them in the right order.

Piece of cake... right?

 

 

What a month it's been... (A new personal update)

Wow, this has been a wild month (not even a month, actually), both Invigorating and exhausting, leaving me feeling in a very different place than I was when it began.

Most important, A Philosopher Reads... Marvel Comics' Civil War comes out today, and I've been very lucky to have gotten some exposure for it online and in real life:

First, I had a blast recording a podcast with Scott Niswander for Nerdsync, which is available at the link as well as the player below. We covered many of the topics and issues in my book, the Civil War comics, and what we could surmise about the upcoming movie, and still only seemed to scratch the surface!

In late March, I gave a lecture at Northwood University (at the kind invitation of an old friend, Glenn Moots, shown at the right, courtesy of Northwood's Facebook page) on the topic of superheroes, liberty, and security, which also drew from the book. The video can be found here, although the player can be very touchy with respect to browsers (Internet Explorer and Edge seem to be best, and Firefox works sometimes). Northwood was extremely welcoming and the audience was great, with both students and faculty anxious to talk afterwards.

Finally, Comics Worth Reading generously ran an excerpt from the book on their website, and The Philosopher's Magazine is planning on doing the same in an upcoming issue. Finally, back in February, Troy Powell (a contributor to The Avengers and Philosophy) presciently interviewed me about the book for Graphic Policy.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In other news...

More directly related to The Virtues of Captain America then the Civil War book, writer R.G. Dole graciously interviewed me for her blog. This interview is particularly meaningful for me, not just because R.G. asked wonderful questions, but because it is the first time I've been interviewed as an author, rather than specifically about the topic of a book. (I've written before about my issues with calling myself an author or writer.)

In support of our co-edited book Economics and the Virtues, Jennifer Baker and I chatted with Tom Woods about the relationship between economics and the virtues for his podcast. This was a great conversation hitting on a lot of points from the book, and I hope to have another talk with Tom soon.

In my last update, I mentioned the event "An Evening with Batman's Brain" at Victoria University in mid-March, hosted by neuroscientist E. Paul Zehr (author of Becoming Batman) and featuring myself and psychologist Travis Langley (author of Batman and Psychology). Here's a nice write-up of the event, courtesy of Otaku No Culture. It was a fantastic night and trip overall: seeing a little of the Pacific northwest, and Victoria specifically, for the first time; meeting Paul and Travis in person after knowing them online for some time; appearing with them in front of a crowd of 800 under theater lights (so we actually couldn't see the audience, which was new to me); speaking afterward with so many students excited to talk about comics and philosophy, and with even more in Paul's class the following day; and marveling at the antics of the guys from Launchpad Productions, whose performances as Batman, Joker, Scarecrow, and Two-Face opened and closed the night's proceedings. (I will never forget the sight of Batman and the Joker doing the dance from Morris Day and the Time's "Jungle Love" in the green room before the show.)

While we're on the topic of Batman, the blog of the American Philosophical Association featured an discussion between me and Skye Cleary on Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; I also had some fun with the film on April Fools' Day at The Comics Professor.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As far as ongoing work is concerned, as you might expect, not a lot was accomplished over the last month. Work still continues slowly on the insanity defense book and various articles and chapters, as well as other embryonic book ideas. But one major project has changed...

The book on superheroes and philosophy that I was working on for the last half year met an untimely end, not at the hands of the spotlight hero's arch-enemies, but rather an inability on my part to arrive at an approach and structure for the book that I was happy with. After struggling for months to find a way to make it work, I finally put an end to it, at least in the format in which I planned (and was contracted) to write it.

I may still write a book on this particular character, but with the way I came to think about him after months of reading, rereading, and thinking, I would have to write a more critical book than I've done about comics to this point. My previous work on superheroes has all been written from the viewpoint of a fan, using the characters and storylines to make an argument rooted in philosophy rather than analyzing or critiquing the source material itself. This is why, to this point, I've never called myself a comics scholar, which would be inaccurate and an insult to those who do actual comics scholarship. But the latter approach is the only one I feel comfortable taking with this character, with whom I developed significant problems over the course of my research. So, if I do write about him I will have to take the rose-tinted glasses off and go full bore in an academic way, which I'm certainly accustomed to doing with economic or philosophical arguments, but not superheroes!

(As it happened, I just heard back from my publisher about new directions for this book as I took a break from writing this post; discussions will continue.)

Other than that, my friends, there are of course the same old unsettled feelings about academia, and a persistent yearning to write fiction and play music that for some unknown reason continues to go unfulfilled. But no time to ramble on about that; this post has gone on long enough. Let me simply say that this was definitely a month that inspires me to consider other options for how I go about my life.

A book is reborn, and two big talks coming soon... (A new personal update)

Today doesn't seem to be a very productive one, so I'll take a moment to let you in a few big things happening around here.

First... you may have noticed that my book A Philosopher Reads Marvel Comics' Civil War was taken down from Amazon Kindle Direct. There is a reason, and it's a good 'un: it will soon be published in paperback and ebook by Ockham Publishing, and the rather striking cover is shown to the right. I'll provide more details about pre-ordering and such when they become available.

(Should I have called this post "Civil War: Rebirth"? Too cheeky by half, I think.)

But there's more! Not only are they publishing my book on Civil War, but Ockham also signed me for the A Philosopher Reads... series, for which I will write more books on comics and the philosophical thoughts they inspire. As I suggested in my post at The Comics Professor announcing the Civil War book, this was in the back of my mind when I chose "A Philosopher Reads..." for the beginning of the title, but Ockham and I have made it a reality.

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Next... I'll be participating in two very exciting events over the next several weeks.

The first is "An Evening with Batman's Brain," a panel on March 16 at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, hosted by neuroscientist E. Paul Zehr (author of Becoming Batman) and also featuring psychologist Travis Langley (author of Batman and Psychology) and myself. The three of us will highlight our individual perspectives on the Dark Knight from our respective disciplines, with some significant overlaps and contrasts that are sure to prompt fascinating discussion. Personally, it will also be the first chance I've had to meet either Paul or Travis in person, which I'm very much looking forward to.

In the meantime, here's a short radio interview Paul and I did with Joe Travis at CFAX 1070 (starting 17:15 into the hour), and some press coverage from Metro Vancouver.

The second is "What Superheroes Can Teach Us About Liberty and Security," a talk I'm giving at Northwood University in Midland, Michigan, upon invitation from my good friend Glenn Moots (chair of political science and philosophy at Northwood). In the talk, I will cover many of the themes from my book on Civil War as well as The Virtues of Captain America.

Add those to my quick trip to the Central Division meetings of the American Philosophical Association last weekend to participate in a session on punishment—which rekindled some dormant thoughts on retributivism I hope to explore more later—and this March will have been the most travel-filled month in my academic life so far.

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Other than that, my life the past month and a half since my last update has mainly been taken up by working on two books-in-progress and a handful of papers, as well as normal chairing duties at the college. (I do have a major editing gig to announce soon, but I'll hold onto that until the contract is signed.)

I'm sorry to say that my latest attempt at scheduling time failed (as every preceding attempt did); maybe I'll discuss my suspicions why in a later blog post. I've been managing to get what I need to do done, but as always, with far too much stress and anxiety. Frankly, I'm tired of waking up every morning—very early—feeling like I'm starting the day already behind. That can't be a good way to live, but until I find a better way, that's the way it is.

Two new books and sundry items of interest: A personal update

Well that was a month, wasn't it? David Bowie's passing hit me much harder than I would have imagined, and it hasn't totally subsided. I wrote a bit about how I felt about him here. Words cannot explain, but they're all I've got. (Of course, in January we also lost Alan Rickman, Paul Kantner, Glenn Frey, Abe Vigoda, and Dale Griffin, not to mention Lemmy late last December, but Bowie's death made the most impact on me by far.)

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In brighter news, I've two new books out, both of which I've talked about here before, but if you will bear a little more:

First, we have Economics and the Virtues: Building a New Moral Foundation, co-edited with Jennifer A. Baker for Oxford University Press, which is out now in the UK and March 7 in the US. It has its own page on this site and a blog post at Economics and Ethics, and there are some preview pages available at Oxford's site. Adam Gurri was kind enough to provide an early review at Sweet Talk as well, and the book already seems to be generating some buzz.

 

Then we also have A Philosopher Reads Marvel Comics' Civil War: Exploring the Moral Judgment of Captain America, Iron Man, and Spider-Man, my first self-published ebook, out February 3 almost everywhere in the world, priced at a measly $4.99 in the States and Canada, £2.99 in the UK, €3.99 in most of Europe, and similarly elsewhere.

UPDATE: This will soon be released in print and ebook by Ockham Publishing; more details soon—but for the time being, the new cover is here for your viewing pleasure.

I blogged about it a bit over at The Comics Professor, where I provide a little more background than I had before, and the table of contents and international ordering details are available at the dedicated page at this site.

I'm sure I'll be blathering about both of these here and there over the next month—my apologies in advance.

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The last month since returning from the ASSA meetings has been a busy one, not least with getting the Civil War book ready for upload to Amazon Kindle Direct. Besides that, I revised a paper on Beccaria for a special issue of a law-and-economics journal; reviewed the proofs of the introductory material for the four-volume Social Economics collection I co-edited with some ASE friends and colleagues; wrote a comment on a paper on punishment and disenfranchisement for the APA Central Division meetings in March; wrote an invited paper on nudges and personal finance for a special journal issue on the ethics of debt; and most momentously, finally settled on a structure and approach for the superhero-and-philosophy book I'm to write this spring. (That last one was really weighing on me, but I think I've got a handle on it now.)

Looking ahead, in addition to work on the aforementioned book (and being back in the office for meetings and other chairpersonly duties), I hope to complete my paper for the Mercatus Center on "right to try" and medical paternalism, as well as my edited book, The Insanity Defense: Multidisciplinary Views on Its History, Trends, and Controversies, for Praeger.

This past month I also blogged a bit more than usual (in addition to informational posts):

• Two posts at Psychology Today: My Resolution for 2016: Cut the (Wireless) Internet Cord (on New Year's Day, natch) and Why You Might Want to Reconsider Putting Yourself Down (a reposting of my friend Ilana C. Myer's terrific blog post). (I also reposted my David Bowie remembrance there.)
• Four posts at The Comics Professor: Civil War II: How the comics sausage is made... (about the disturbing public revelations regarding behind-the-scenes decision-making at Marvel); The return of Steve Rogers as Captain America, and pondering the issue of "Marvel multiples"; my first "quick reviews" post (for the comics released on January 27); and a satirical note about DC Comics' teased "Rebirth."

In general, I'm hoping to plan my time better in coming months, inspired by this blog post by Raul Pacheco-Vega and Paul J. Silvia's book How to Write a Lot. I've tried many times and have never succeeded, but it's getting to the point where I have to make it work.

Finally, I was honored to be invited to give three talks, two in March (!) and one in July; more on those when plans firm up. Add jury duty to the mix next week, and my need to schedule my time better starts to make sense!

A scary new personal update: Changes are afoot!

It's been a bit of an uneasy several months since my last update at the end of July. In the grand scheme of things, everything's fine—no one who I know died, lost their job, or decided to run for president—but for someone like me who tries to maintain a calm and smooth existence, it's been an unsettling time.

August was a month spent bouncing back from finishing my book on Marvel Comics' Civil War (on which much more later), but I did manage to write one article (on Cesare Beccaria and law-and-economics) and revise another (on externalities). I had larger plans for August which I was lucky to be able to push back; naturally, I underestimated the stress of writing the Civil War book on such a tight schedule, and I'm beginning to see the benefits of taking breaks (which I'm seriously considering next summer).

As it turned out, September began with an unexpected course to teach, so writing plans for the fall had to be revised as well (beyond what I had managed to reschedule in August). Add to that the normal personnel matters facing department chairs, a minor car accident (no one hurt, everything handled smoothly, but still disruptive), and a surprise root canal (requiring five dental visits), and the fall has not been as productive writing-wise so far as I had hoped.

Nonetheless, I managed to write and revise a book chapter on happiness policy (thanks to extraordinarily timely feedback from the editors), make further revisions to the article on externalities (which was then accepted), and, with my co-editor Jennifer Baker, correct the proofs and construct an index for Economics and the Virtues: Building a New Moral Foundation, which is due to be published by the end of the year in the UK (to be available at the ASSA and APA Eastern meetings in early January) and two months later in the US.

I also wrote three new Psychology Today posts in September:

• Thinking About “The Rationality of Rage” (in response to this New York Times article by Matthew Hutson)
• The Self-Loather's Worst Fear: Is Self-Image Set for Life?
• Do You Feel Like a Placeholder in Your Relationship?

As for the Civil War book... sigh. To make a long story short, Sterling and I had significant differences of opinion which led to a parting of ways. (Let's just leave it at that.) After lengthy but unsuccessful discussions with several other presses, and with very little time (in publishing terms) before the release of Captain America: Civil War, I have decided to publish the book myself, most likely through Amazon's Kindle Direct. I have already secured the services of an expert copyeditor with whom I have worked before, and am now trying to find an artist I can commission to produce a marvelous (with a small "m") cover. (In the meantime, be sure to check out Kevin Scott's edited book Marvel Comics' Civil War and the Age of Terror: Critical Essays on the Comic Saga, which includes a chapter by me which previews my own book.)

In much better news, I was invited by Professor Dianne Creagh at York College of Pennsylvania to deliver their inaugural lecture for the First-Year Experience last Wednesday. (Here's some local press on the event.) It was a tremendously wonderful experience: Creagh and everyone else at York were very welcoming and gracious, and the 200+ students and faculty that filled the lecture hall (standing-room only, as you can see in the picture below) were a great audience as I discussed examples of ethical problems faced by superheroes that also apply to our own lives.

 

Students lined up after the presentation to talk about comics, movies, and philosophy—and also get books signed (some with more than one!) at the table that York's bookstore set up outside the hall (there was also a terrific display of my books in the bookstore itself). The picture to the right was taken before the talk, at which point they were already almost sold out of Watchmen and Philosophy.

I really can't say enough about how the entire campus came out in support of my visit and how appreciative everyone was. It was easily the most enjoyable "work" experience I can remember having, and several people (including Creagh) suggested I do more talks of this sort, which I am seriously considering.

Meanwhile, work continues on several articles, book chapters, conference papers, and edited books, as well as preparing to write another book on superheroes and philosophy in the spring. Happily, the semester looks to lighten up in early November, and spring semester is always easier in terms of teaching and administration. (On second thought, maybe I shouldn't say that, ha.)

Here's to a smoother remainder of the semester and the year for everyone!