Mark D. White

Welcome to autumn... (A personal update)

I wanted to get this update out before the end of August, but it took until now to get some summer tasks done (in the midst of a challenging start to the fall semester), so here we are. At least it gives me an opportunity to post this picture, taken yesterday in the woods near where I live.

The main event here has been the July release of the second edition of my Captain America book (and the August release of the audiobook). I did a round of podcasts for it (which can be found here), most recently the Captain America Comic Book Fans podcast, in which we dove deep into the new material, especially the sections on fascism and "Secret Empire" and the half-chapter on Sam Wilson's time so far as Cap. I also posted at Psychology Today on what "Secret Empire" can teach us about fascism (and I plan to post there about Sam closer to the release of his movie). On The Virtues of Captain America Blog, we finally made it through "Heroes Reborn" and have started in on the "Heroes Return" era with the third volumes of Captain America and Avengers.

In terms of other writing, I have a number of book chapters in various stages of completion for edited volumes, including a chapter on the resource implications of punishment in Jesper Ryberg's The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Punishment, which will be published soon, and a chapter about the importance of teaching economics students about rights and justice for The Elgar Handbook of Teaching Philosophy to Economists, edited by Ricardo Crespo, John B. Davis, and Giancarlo Ianulardo. I also posted twice more at Psychology Today on fascinating journal articles on moral obligations after hearing a slur and questions around manic episodes and autonomy.

Other than that, work continues on several books as well as teaching and chairing. On the concert front, since my last post my son and I saw Deep Purple, Yes, Accept, and Metal Allegiance, and coming up this weekend is Testament, Kreator, and Possessed, followed by King Diamond and Overkill at the end of October and Iron Maiden in early November. (Big plans for 2025 as well, including Nile, Kerry King, Dream Theater, and Oasis.)

Summertime, and the livin' is... goin'... (A personal update)

Welcome back to your quarterly glimpse into my life...

[UPDATED 7-11-2024] The biggest "news" I have to report is that the second edition of The Virtues of Captain America is now available in print and as an ebook and will be released as an audiobook (narrated by Kirby Heyborne) on August 27. I have a number of podcasts lined up, and will undoubtedly be blogging about it here and there, so watch my page for the new edition, the socials, and this blog for news on that. It has been a wild ride since I sent the "hey, what if" email just over two years ago, and I am very pleased with how it turned out.

In related news, my blog of the same name recently passed 500 posts, and now covers the entire first volumes of the Captain America and Avengers titles. Of course, this means it will soon be starting in on the second (the controversial "Heroes Reborn" era, for those in the know), but I plan to go through that short run tout suite.

I have continued to blog at Psychology Today, most recently these four posts:

• Can the Serenity Prayer Help Us With Our Attention Problems?
• Is It Wrong to Ask for Fidelity from Our Partners?
• Finding Your Purpose in Life 'The Bear' Way
• Yes, Chef! How "The Bear" Can Make Your Workplace Better

As you can see from the last two, I am a huge fan of The Bear, and am currently engrossed in season 3. (The posts above went up before the new season began, so there are no spoilers for it; the post on finding purpose does vaguely recap the events of "Forks" from season 2.)

Other than that, work continues on several projects (including reading tons of Fantastic Four comics for some mysterious reason), while the day job continues to deteriorate. (1524 days to retirement as of June 30.) In the hope of finding alternative employment opportunities, I bit the bullet and joined LinkedIn although I have no idea what to do with it. (I almost made a joke based on an episode from season 3 of The Bear but I stopped myself before it was too late.)

On the brighter side, I have taken the plunge into vinyl collecting, amassing quite a collection over the past few months as my son and I make our Satuday rounds to the amazing record stores of north and central New Jersey. If you're curious, our main haunts are Scotti's, SOMA Sounds, Factory Records, Sound Exchange, and, as of yesterday, Vinyl Addiction. (There may have been a few ebay purchases too, but I prefer to shop firsthand.)

Also, we have been seeing a few hard rock and metal concerts, including Judas Priest; Saxon and Uriah Heep; Mr. Big; Cannibal Corpse, Obituary, and Frozen Soul (joined by my daughter, briefly home from college); Death to All and Cryptopsy; and most recently Overkill (at the same NJ venue where I saw them in 2010).

Coming up in the late summer and fall: Deep Purple (second time seeing them at PNC Bank Arts Center, third time overall) with Yes; Accept with K.K.'s Priest; Amorphis; Testament, Kreator, and Possessed; and Iron Maiden (second time seeing them at the Prudential Center in Newark, fourth time overall).

That's it for now... I hope to have more to report by summer's end, even if it is only promotion for Cap 2.0. Enjoy the rest of summer—or winter, if you tend toward the southern side of the planet!

Late winter flurry of activity... (A personal update)

Just wanted to provide a quick update about some things that have happened since the beginning of the year as I continue to work on long-term projects amidst an ever-worsening employment situation. (Only 1616 days to retirement as of March 30!)

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As I said before, my Daredevil book came out at the end of December, and in addition to the Seize the Moment podcast and Psychology Today posts I noted in my 2023 wrap-up post, I recently appeared on the Good Is In the Details podcast to discuss Daredevil, work/life balance, and relationships.

 

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My antitrust book came out in February, and I have a short piece on it at the LSE American Politics and Policy blog and a new appearance on Seize the Moment to discuss it.

 

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The second edition of my Captain America book will be published this summer, and the full cover was recently finalized (click for larger version with better resolution):

 

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I was honored to return to my undergraduate alma mater, Ohio Northern University (class of 1993), in early March to give two talks: a classroom lecture on Kant and economics and a public lecture on Batman and ethics, both of which were well-received with excellent questions from the audience (including a certain Caped Crusader in the latter). It had been nearly thirty years since I'd been back to ONU, and it was quite an experience, connecting with friends and faculty both old and new and seeing how much the campus had changed but still remaining very familiar.

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Finally, I blogged a few times at Psychology Today at the end of March:

• Can Maintaining a Strict Routine Be an Act of Freedom?
• Should You Want to Know If Your Partner Cheated on You?
• Is It Cheating to Dream About Being With Another Partner?

 

My 2023 in review, and looking ahead to 2024...

I'm pleased to have more to report this year than the last several, not necessarily because I did more—although I suspect I did—but because what I've been doing has begun to appear in the world.

First of all, as I've been banging on about for the last several weeks, A Philosopher Reads... Marvel Comics' Daredevil: From the Beginning to Born Again (the third in the series) was published on December 21 by Ockham Publishing. You can see more details about it here, and I posted a few times at Psychology Today (mostly drawn from the last two chapters focusing on his mental state, not the earlier ethics material):

• How Much Should You Question the Value of What You Do?
• Why You Should Be Careful How Much Responsibility You Take
• Matt Murdock's Identity Crisis: To Be or Not To Be Daredevil
• Even a Superhero Can Cycle Between Delirium and Despair

Also, my friends at the Seize the Moment Podcast had me on once again, and we covered a lot (with most of the good points made by the guys who weren't me, of course):

Second, Rights versus Antitrust: Challenging the Ethics of Competition Law will be published by Agenda Publishing in February—a book I've been trying to write for years but it took the right approach together with the right publisher to make it happen. Expect to hear much more about this after the new year, but in the meantime you can see more details about it here.

Third, I have all but finished work on the second edition of The Virtues of Captain America: I submitted the corrected proofs and revised index just before Christmas, and the book is scheduled to be published next summer (just a few months over ten years after the first edition). Not only did I revise the entire manuscript, adding new examples where useful, but I also added two new substantial sections on the recent "Secret Empire" episode—one of how Steve Rogers's moral character was affected by the Hydra brainwashing and the other on how "Hydra-Cap" illustrates various aspects of fascism—and a new half-chapter on Sam Wilson's time so far as Captain America, examining how his approach to the job compares to Steve's.

On a related note, I also resumed work on The Virtues of Captain America Blog in late September, after putting it on hold a year ago to work on the book, posting weekly since. (This is a more manageable pace, I've found, allowing me to comfortably get ahead of schedule and not feel rushed.)

In terms of shorter work, I was also happy to see a handbook chapter published—“A Kantian Perspective on Teaching Ethics to Economists,” in Ioana Negru, Craig Duckworth, and Imko Meyenburg (eds), Handbook of Teaching Ethics to Economists: A Plurality of Perspectives (Edward Elgar)—as well as my review of Samuel Hollander's Immanuel Kant and Utilitarian Ethics in The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought.

In terms of the day job, the less said the better: I have three more semesters to go as department chair and then three more years as a full-time teacher until my retirement in 2028 (thirty years after I began).

In cheerier academic news, I was honored to be invited back to my undergraduate alma mater, Ohio Northern University (class of '93), to give two lectures in March (thanks to my former professor and dean Rich Meininger who whispered about me in the organizers' ears after hearing they wanted someone interdisciplinary).

As 2024 begins, I move on to other projects full-time. (If any of my very patient editors are reading this, I assure you that yours is my top priority!) Whatever your 2024 plans are, I wish you well in their pursuit, and I'll have more updates as more of my work sees the light of day.

As summer ends and another fall begins... (A personal update)

I meant to post an update at the end of August, but I decided to wait until I wrapped up the second edition of my Captain America book, which I finally submitted last week, and restarted the associated blog, which I did this week. (You can see the first "real" post here, and a little about the book on the "I'm back" post here.) Now I continue work on other projects, all of which I want to make significant progress on this academic year (while the situation at my job continues to deteriorate).

I've long been questioning the purpose of these updates, as infrequent and brief as they've become. They may make more sense next year, however, when the books I finished this year start coming out.

I hope everyone has a good rest of the year, and we'll see what I have to report at the end of it.

As another summer begins... (A personal update)

A quick update as another academic year closes...

It was an eventful year, during which my department hired a fantastic new faculty member and the college searched for a new president (my role being much more significant in the former than the latter). At commencement yesterday, I was proud to watch one of my students, philosophy major and U.S. army veteran David Checchi, make the valedictory speech for the class of 2023. (You can watch and listen to his speech here.) Afterwards, we said goodbye to our long-serving and irreplaceable administrative assistant, who will be retiring June 1.

On the writing front, I am relieved to say I got back in a good work habit in the last few months, finishing up two book projects (on which more soon) and starting or continuing work on others—one of which is the second edition of my Captain America book, which also makes me eager to resume the blog, especially after rereading the more recent stories.

It's strange that these last few months have been some of my busiest in recent memory (in a good way) and I don't have more to say about them, but it's really the same old stuff—chairing, advising, teaching, and writing—which I have simply managed to balance more smoothly than in the past.

Until next time, I wish everyone a joyous, relaxing, and productive summer (whatever those may mean to you)!

My 2022 in review, and looking ahead to 2023 (and beyond)...

Christmas Eve in the park near where I live...

Another year's round-up, this one rather short... Perhaps that's simply because I'm becoming more focused? (No, I didn't think so either, sigh.)

First, my job situation, which hasn't changed much: As I reported earlier (and despite what I said in my end-of-2021 post), I did remain as department chair, which at least is a familiar burden, but also a growing one, as the fiscal environment of public higher education continues to erode. On the bright side, it was terrific to return to (masked) in-person teaching this past semester; my students were impressively enthusiastic and engaged, especially compared to the general (and understandable) burnout, anxiety, and grief among students (and everyone else). I also gave my first invited talk in several years, on Batman and ethics at York College of Pennsylvania, where I'd last spoken in 2015—that too was a welcome return, in more ways than one.

My primary published output this year was A Philosopher Reads... Marvel Comics' Thor: If They Be Worthy, for which I wrote a few Psychology Today posts and appeared on a handful of podcasts with friends both old and new. (See my webpage for the book for more.) In addition, my chapter "Panther Virtue: The Many Roles of T’Challa" was published this year in Black Panther and Philosophy, edited by Edwardo Pérez and Timothy E. Brown, and I wrote a chapter on punishment and resources for The Oxford Handbook of Punishment Theory and Philosophy, edited by Jesper Ryberg, to be published in the near future.

As far as online writing is concerned, aside from a handful posts at Economics and Ethics and The Comics Professor, my main output was my continued work on The Virtues of Captain America Blog, which, after 4½ years and 460 posts covering over a thousand comics, is now on hiatus until next summer so I can focus on the revised and updated second edition of the book (plans for which I discussed last month on the Captain America Comic Book Fans podcast).

Looking ahead: In addition to the Cap revision, I have several other projects to complete over the year (or two), some of which I've mentioned before (and others that I'm more reticent about). I've never been a good scheduler, but I can't afford not to be now; I am relieved, however, that the projects are conveniently spaced out in time, assuming I can work on writing one while reading ancd researching for another (as well as teaching, chairing, and so on).

In the meantime, I wish all of you a happy New Year, whatever that means to you (and however you may find it), and I hope to have some news to report in a few months.

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.

As summer starts... (A personal update)

With the academic year wrapped up and a long overdue handbook chapter completed, the time has come to switch gears, which also provides an opportunity to post a brief update, also long overdue.

It was a tough semester with a lot of campus drama, most of it unnecessary but none of it surprising. I did, however, change my mind about what I wrote at the end of 2021, for both professional and personal reasons, and offered to continue as department chair for a least a little while longer (which my colleagues all too eagerly took me up on).

With the handbook chapter finally done and the summer laid out ahead of me, I can resume work full-time on my introductory ethics textbook using superhero examples, as well as background reading/re-reading for future titles in the A Philosopher Reads... series, which is now actually a series after the publication in April of the second book, A Philosopher Reads... Marvel Comics' Thor: If They Be Worthy. There is already one review online from Armond Boudreaux at A Clash of Heroes, as well as two podcasts I guested on, the first of which is with my old friends Leon and Alen at Seize the Moment:

(Clearly we're all having a miserable time.)

The second is with my new friend, Thor super-fan Ryan Does, at Across the Bifrost:

I have one more podcast for the book planned at this time, and as the new movie approaches I'm sure I'll have more to share.

In other superhero-related news:

• My other blogging activity all but collapsed since the new year began, but I have kept up with my twice-weekly posts at The Virtues of Captain America Blog, which celebrated its 400th post in May.
• I wrote about the latest Batman film here, and was interviewed by the German magazine Cinema ahead of its release (see my tweet with images here).
• The book Black Panther and Philosophy, edited by Edwardo Pérez and Timothy E. Brown, was released in January, and it includes my chapter "Panther Virtue: The Many Roles of T’Challa."
• I guested on the Podcast Supreme discussing Doctor Strange: The Oath, the subject of my chapter in Doctor Strange and Philosophy:

• Speaking of Doctor Strange and Philosophy, I learned recently that the Chinese translation has been published, which makes four of my volumes in the Blackwell Philosophy and Popular Culture series that have been translated in Chinese, which blows my mind.

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That's it for this update; we'll see how much I have to report by summer's end.

If you have a chance, I hope you enjoy the next several months, whatever that means for you, and in the meantime I'll see you on Twitter and Instagram, where I post lots of photos like the one at the top of this post, taken yesterday morning from the landing at the top of my back stairs. Here's another, from this morning, just because you made it this far:

My 2021 in review, and looking ahead to 2022...

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).
• My chapter "Reflections on the State of Economics and Ethics" was published last month in The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Economics, edited by Conrad Heinmann and Julian Reiss.

2. I was much more active in what we olds used to call "the blogosphere," especially in the second half of the year:

• In August, I resumed blogging for Psychology Today, including a very widely read post earlier this month on Cecily Whiteley's provocative work on depression as a unique state of consciousness.
• 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.

(Sorry, Ben—got carried away.)