Don Adams is Professor of Philosophy at Central Connecticut State University. He teaches logic and the history of philosophy. Most of his publications are on ancient Greek philosophy, especially the philosophy of Socrates. When he teaches Plato's theory of censorship, he sometimes uses the following question in class: if a Wookiee and a Luxan got into a fight in the piano bar onboard Galactica, how much damage would they do as measured in quatloos? (By the way, “five thousand” is not the correct answer.)
Kyle Alkema is an unaffiliated philosopher who most recently published a chapter in It's Always Sunny and Philosophy (Open Court, 2015). The only reason he'd consider taking up chewing tobacco would be to adopt the nickname “Chewbacca.”
Adam Barkman is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Redeemer University College in Canada. He's the co-editor of four books on popular culture and philosophy, including Manga and Philosophy (Open Court, 2010), and the author of five books, most recently Making Sense of Islamic Art & Architecture (Thames & Hudson, 2015). Although convinced, on the basis of having read nearly every Expanded Universe novel and comic, that the Star Wars saga narrates one of the greatest mythologies of our time, Adam swears he'll boycott Episode VII if it has another damned Death Star in it!
Annika Beck is a scholar in residence at the Kierkegaard Library, St. Olaf College, but was recalled from her goodwill mission to the Ewok settlements of Endor to write for this volume. She has ongoing research interests in moral psychology, philosophy of religion, and bioethics. When she isn't picketing Jawa sandcrawlers to demand droid freedom, she can be found on her home planet engaged in research and creating art with her galactic glue stick and Imperial embossing gun.
Lance Belluomini did his graduate studies in philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley; San Francisco State University; and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He's recently contributed chapters to Inception and Philosophy (Wiley, 2011), The Walking Dead and Philosophy (Wiley, 2012), and Ender's Game and Philosophy (Wiley, 2013). His philosophical interests include ethics and the philosophy of popular culture. Ever since he saw the deleted Anchorhead scenes featuring Luke and Biggs, he's had this strange recurring dream where he goes into Tosche Station, picks up some power converters to repair Luke's T-16 Skyhopper, and then flies it through Beggar's Canyon, where he attempts to “bull's-eye” womp rats.
Cole Bowman is a writer and independent scholar living in Portland, Oregon. She's also a contributor to Ender's Game and Philosophy (Wiley, 2013) and is eager to dispel the old rumors that space is a “boys' club.” When she's not using the Force against the patriarchy, she attempts to build her own lightsabers and searches the sky for signs that another Death Star has moved into position in the outer atmosphere – both to very limited success.
Dan Burkett is a doctoral student in philosophy at Rice University. He specializes in social and political philosophy, morality, freedom, and the philosophy of time. He's recently contributed chapters to both Futurama and Philosophy (Open Court, 2013) and Homeland and Philosophy (Open Court, 2014). If there's a bright center to the universe, then his home of New Zealand is the place that it's farthest from.
Charles C. Camosy is Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at Fordham University in New York City. His interests include bioethics, the dialogue between philosophy and theology, and the intersection of ethics and public policy. His fourth book, Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation (Eerdmans, 2015), attempts to move the debate beyond the simplistic and antagonistic life/choice binary. Whether writing a book, teaching his students, or having a Twitter exchange, he tries to both argue for and live out Obi-Wan's great insight: there are alternatives to fighting.
Roy T. Cook is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, a resident fellow of the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, and an associate fellow of the Northern Institute of Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He's the author of This Is Philosophy of Logic (Blackwell, forthcoming), The Yablo Paradox: An Essay on Circularity (Oxford, 2014), Key Concepts in Philosophy: Paradox (Polity, 2013), and A Dictionary of Philosophical Logic (Edinburgh, 2009). He's also the editor or coeditor of The Routledge Companion to Comics and Graphic Novels (with Frank Bramlett and Aaron Meskin; Routledge, forthcoming), The Art of Comics: A Philosophical Approach (with Aaron Meskin; Wiley, 2012), and The Arché Papers on the Mathematics of Abstraction (Springer, 2007). In addition, he's published over fifty academic articles and book chapters on the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of logic, mathematical logic, the aesthetics of popular culture (especially film and comics), and related topics. As a child, Roy owned every Kenner Star Wars action figure ever produced except Blue Snaggletooth and Vlix.
Kevin S. Decker teaches philosophy at Eastern Washington University, where he often lectures about the phenomenology of peaches and the rights of vampire citizens. He is the editor or coeditor of several anthologies of philosophy and popular culture, including the original Star Wars and Philosophy (with Jason T. Eberl; Open Court, 2005). His book, Who Is Who? The Philosophy of Doctor Who (I. B. Tauris, 2013), has been popular on the convention circuit, where he's frequently mistaken by fans for Mark Hamill.
George A. Dunn lectures in philosophy and religion at the University of Indianapolis and the Ningbo Institute of Technology in Zhejiang Province, China. He's the editor of Avatar and Philosophy (Wiley, 2014) and Veronica Mars and Philosophy (Wiley, 2014) and a coeditor of True Blood and Philosophy (Wiley, 2010), The Hunger Games and Philosophy (Wiley, 2012), Sons of Anarchy and Philosophy (Wiley, 2013), and The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan (Lexington, forthcoming). He's also contributed to similar books on Iron Man, Mad Men, Battlestar Galactica, Terminator, and other pop culture topics. A hopeless romantic, he's spent a lifetime looking for love in Alderaan places.
Jason T. Eberl is the Semler Endowed Chair for Medical Ethics and Professor of Philosophy at Marian University in Indianapolis. He teaches and publishes on bioethics, medieval philosophy, and metaphysics. He's the editor of Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy (Wiley, 2008); coeditor (with Kevin S. Decker) of the forthcoming The Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy (Wiley), as well as the original Star Trek and Philosophy (Open Court, 2008) and Star Wars and Philosophy (Open Court, 2005); and coeditor (with George A. Dunn) of Sons of Anarchy and Philosophy (Wiley, 2013) and The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan (Lexington, forthcoming). He's also contributed to similar books on Stanley Kubrick, J. J. Abrams, Harry Potter, Metallica, Terminator, The Hunger Games, The Big Lebowski, and Avatar. A huge fan of J. J. Abrams's work, he nevertheless plans to wear sunglasses to the premiere of Episode VII to compensate for lens-flares.
Leonard Finkelman let loose a Tusken Raider howl upon receiving his PhD in Philosophy from the City University of New York Graduate Center. He first demonstrated his commitment to philosophy a long time ago in a dorm room far, far away, when he refused on moral grounds to play as a dark side character in the Jedi Knight series of PC games. He now teaches philosophy of science to the padawans of Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon.
Rhiannon Grant completed her PhD at the University of Leeds. She works on Wittgenstein, mainly in relation to religious language, with a particular interest in Quaker and feminist theologies. She allows undergraduates to use the Jedi as an example of a religion in class discussions, but doesn't let them use the Force during exams.
Matt Hummel earned a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies with a focus in Ethics and Values from Valparaiso University. His interests include philosophy of law, applied ethics, communications, and humane education. He works in Evansville, Indiana, as a paralegal for the public defender agency, where he confronts the dark side daily, helping smugglers prove they didn't shoot first. He contributed to Dungeons & Dragons and Philosophy (Wiley, 2014). He strives to learn the Stoic patience of a Jedi as he awaits the next installment of the Star Wars franchise.
Andrew Zimmerman Jones studied physics and philosophy at Wabash College, and earned a Master's Degree in Mathematics Education from Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. He now hashes out a living as a freelance writer/editor. He runs the About.com Physics website and authored String Theory for Dummies (Wiley, 2010). He's put his neck on the line to assist the Rebel Alliance in several previous volumes, including Green Lantern and Philosophy (Wiley, 2011) and The Big Bang Theory and Philosophy (Wiley, 2012). He's married to a lovely princess and father to two Ewok padawans (don't ask!), living with them on the forest moon of Indiana.
Nathan Kellen is a doctoral candidate at the University of Connecticut. His dissertation is on the philosophy of truth and logic, and in his spare time he enjoys working on ethics and the philosophy of mathematics. He hopes to soon pass his Padawan trials to join the ranks of the Jedi Knights of philosophy. Much like some who've skirted alongside the dark side of the Force, he believes philosophy should be brought to the peoples of the galaxy, rather than kept in the Temple and Library.
Dennis Knepp teaches philosophy and religious studies at Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake, Washington. He has chapters in Wiley's Philosophy and Pop Culture books on Twilight, Alice in Wonderland, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Hobbit, Superman, Avatar, and Black Sabbath. He's been a Star Wars fan since 1977 at age seven and still has many of the vintage action figures with several spaceships, including the Millennium Falcon (Thanks, Mom and Dad!). He dedicates his chapter to his cousin Mike Knepp (currently serving in the U.S. military), who first taught him the value of the collectible Blue Snaggletooth.
David LaRocca is a visiting scholar in the Department of English at Cornell University and a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the College at Cortland, State University of New York. Among other works in philosophy and film, he's the author of Emerson's English Traits and the Natural History of Metaphor (Bloomsbury, 2013) and editor of Stanley Cavell's Emerson's Transcendental Etudes (Stanford, 2003), The Philosophy of Charlie Kaufman (University Press of Kentucky, 2011), and The Philosophy of War Films (University Press of Kentucky, 2014). His next project on Boba Fett could address the ethics of service to lords and masters in dialogue with Mr. Stevens from The Remains of the Day and Mr. Carson from Downton Abbey. How odd it would be to discover affinities between a mercenary's brawn and a butler's discerning poise.
William A. Lindenmuth is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Shoreline College. He received his MA in Philosophy in New York City from the New School for Social Research, and his BA in English from Saint Mary's College in California. He's taught in New York, Las Vegas, Seattle, and Rome, Italy. He specializes in normative ethics and moral psychology, particularly through the media of literature and film, arguing that our stories show us both who we are and who we'd like to be. He's contributed to the forthcoming The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan (Lexington) and The Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy (Wiley). You can find him online in the MOOC “Philosophy and Film” at Canvas.net. Meanwhile, he keeps searching for a life greater than that of an ordinary philosopher, a life of significance – of conscience.
Greg Littmann is your father and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. You were hidden from him when you were born, and he's been biding his time by publishing on philosophy of logic, evolutionary epistemology, and the ethics of professional philosophy, as well as writing many chapters for books relating philosophy to popular culture, including volumes on The Big Bang Theory, Doctor Who, Dune, Game of Thrones, Planet of the Apes, and The Walking Dead. When his troops finally locate you, you will join him, and together you will rule the galaxy. If you've ever had the feeling that you're more special than other people, this is why.
Terrance MacMullan is Professor of Philosophy and Honors at Eastern Washington University. His book, The Habits of Whiteness: A Pragmatist Reconstruction, was published by Indiana University Press in 2009, and he's previously published work on popular culture and philosophy in The Daily Show and Philosophy (Wiley, 2007, 2013) and Star Wars and History (Wiley, 2013). His proudest achievement was winning second place at the 2014 Spokane Comic Convention for his Qui-Gon Jinn costume.
Daniel Malloy is a lecturer in philosophy at Appalachian State University. His research focuses on issues in ethics. He's published numerous chapters on the intersection of popular culture and philosophy, particularly dealing with the illustration of moral questions in movies, comic books, and television shows. He's pretty sure those were the droids he's looking for.
Marek McGann is a lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland. He teaches and publishes in the areas of cognitive science and the philosophy of mind, and has a particular interest in the issues of embodiment and consciousness. He spends much of his day finding new ways to motivate students he thinks could do with doubling their efforts.
Jennifer L. McMahon is Professor of Philosophy and English at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma. She has expertise in existentialism, aesthetics, and comparative philosophy. She's published numerous essays on philosophy and popular culture, most recently in Buddhism and American Cinema (SUNY, 2014) and Death in Classic and Contemporary Cinema (Palgrave, 2013). She's edited collections, including The Philosophy of Tim Burton (University Press of Kentucky, 2014) and The Philosophy of the Western (University Press of Kentucky, 2010). While she hopes to have shown that her ambivalence toward Leia has a more legitimate foundation, she admits her negativity toward the princess could just be the result of the fact that she ended up with Han.
Nicolas Michaud teaches philosophy in Jacksonville, Florida. His current research and writing focus on marginalization, disabilities studies, and floppy-eared jerks who ruin perfectly awesome Galactic Republics. He really hates Jar Jar Binks.
James M. Okapal is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Missouri Western State University. He's published essays on moral value, ethics in film, and free will in Harry Potter. He's currently the chair for the Philosophy and Culture Area at the Pop Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference. Craving neither adventure nor excitement, his ultimate goal is to become Chief Librarian of the Jedi Archives and rediscover all of the knowledge lost during the Great Jedi Purge of 19 BBY.
Myfanwy Reynolds isn't the philosopher you're looking for. She holds a Master's Degree in Medieval English Literatures and is primarily interested in medieval popular romance and other stories of farmboy heroes, long-lost parents, and strange lands.
Charles Taliaferro is the current Chair of the Department of Philosophy at St. Olaf College, and has authored, coauthored, or edited over twenty books, including Turning Images (Oxford University Press, 2011). He's contributed to philosophy and popular culture volumes on Harry Potter, the Olympics, the Rolling Stones, and other topics. On his campus, he has an awkward robot modeled on R2-D2 that carries books and student papers.
John M. Thompson, when last heard from, was Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Christopher Newport University, having earned his PhD in the Cultural and Historical Study of Religion at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Even as a child growing up in the wilds of suburban Washington, DC, he had broad interests in Asian cultures and religions, as well as myth, symbol, and ritual. Ancient records indicate that he's written two books on Buddhism, edited a volume of essays on the intersection of politics and religion in Asia, and published various articles and reviews in a wide array of journals and books, among them Psych and Philosophy (Open Court, 2013) and The Devil and Philosophy (Open Court, 2014). Some people say that he has since disappeared into the deserts of Tatooine, where he lives in a cave practicing martial arts, listening to rock and roll, and searching the scriptures for secret instructions on the mysteries of brewing beer. Others say that he lives in Williamsburg, Virginia, with his beautiful wife and daughters along with a motley pack of troublesome cats and dogs.