Franklin Allaire is a doctoral candidate (ABD) in educational foundations at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and a high school science teacher. Aside from contributing chapters to various philosophy and pop culture series, he does work on topics such as postmodern theories and concepts of identity, identity salience, (science) education, and terror management theory.
Robert Arp, Ph.D., works as an analyst for the U.S. Army and has interests in philosophy, ontology in the information science sense, and philosophy and popular culture. See his website at http://robertarp.webs.com/.
Randall E. Auxier, Ph.D., is professor of philosophy at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He writes on process philosophy, American idealism, and popular culture, including film, music, sports, and television.
Adam Barkman, Ph.D., is associate professor of philosophy at Redeemer University College. He is the author of C. S. Lewis and Philosophy as a Way of Life and Through Common Things and is the coeditor of Manga and Philosophy.
Ashley Barkman, M.A., M.T.S., is a part-time lecturer at Redeemer University College. Her recent publications include several chapters in various philosophy and pop culture series.
Patricia Brace, Ph.D., is professor of art history at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, Minnesota. Her primary research interest is the aesthetic analysis of popular culture. She contributed a chapter to the University Press of Kentucky volumes The Philosophy of Joss Whedon, The Philosophy of David Lynch (with coauthor Rob Arp), and The Philosophy of Ang Lee (with coauthor Misty Jameson).
Paul DiRado, M.A., is a philosopher currently teaching at the University of Kentucky. He specializes in ancient philosophy, particularly the intersection between ethics and metaphysics/epistemology in Greek thought.
Justin Donhauser, M.A., is a doctoral candidate (ABD) at the University at Buffalo and a lecturer at Buffalo State College. Aside from dabbling in philosophy and pop culture, he works on topics in the epistemology of scientific representation, metaphysics of biology, and practical environmental philosophy.
Jason T. Eberl, Ph.D., is the Semler Endowed Chair for Medical Ethics at Marian University in Indianapolis. He teaches and publishes in bioethics, medieval philosophy, and metaphysics. He’s the editor of Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy and coeditor of Star Trek and Philosophy, Star Wars and Philosophy, and Sons of Anarchy and Philosophy.
Charlene Elsby, M.A., is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at McMaster University, writing on Aristotle’s metaphysics and semantics with particular regard to things that do not exist.
Jeff Ewing is a graduate student in sociology at the University of Oregon. He has written a number of chapters connecting popular culture to philosophy, including chapters in Terminator and Philosophy and Arrested Development and Philosophy.
Joseph J. Foy, Ph.D., is associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin–Waukesha. He is the editor of the John G. Cawelti Award–winning book Homer Simpson Goes to Washington: American Politics through Popular Culture and coeditor of Homer Simpson Marches on Washington: Dissent through American Popular Culture and Homer Simpson Ponders Politics: Popular Culture as Political Theory. He also edited Sponge-Bob SquarePants and Philosophy.
Andrew Fyfe, M.A., is adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Mary Washington. His most recent work appears in Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy with entries on William James’s “The Will to Believe” lecture and J. S. Mill’s proof of the principle of utility.
Vishal Garg, M.A., practices law in Connecticut. He is interested in moral responsibility, environmental ethics, and legal philosophy and has taught courses in biomedical ethics and engineering ethics.
Cynthia Jones, Ph.D., is associate professor of philosophy and director of the Coalition Against Violence and Exploitation (CAVE) Program, the Gelman Constitutional Scholars Program, and the Pan American Collaboration for Ethics (PACE) at the University of Texas–Pan American. She publishes and researches in bioethics, ethics and technology, intelligence ethics, and pop culture. Some of her recent publications appear in the American Journal of Public Health, Teaching Ethics, and The Onion and Philosophy.
Emilie Judge-Becker has studied philosophy of film, music, and art history at St. Olaf College, Smith College, and Università degli Studi di Firenze (Italy). She is pursuing a career in writing and music.
Spyros D. Petrounakos, M.A., studied philosophy at the University of London. He is a freelance editor, writer, and translator with a special focus on philosophy and theory. He lives and works in Athens, Greece.
Jerry S. Piven, Ph.D., has taught at NYU, New School University, and Case Western Reserve University, where his courses have focused on the philosophy of religion, existentialism, psychoanalysis, and metaphysics. He is the editor of The Psychology of Death in Fantasy and History (2004) and Terrorism, Jihad, and Sacred Vengeance (2004) and the author of Death and Delusion: A Freudian Analysis of Mortal Terror (2004), The Madness and Perversion of Yukio Mishima (2004), and Nihon No Kyoki (Japanese madness, 2007). He has recently completed Slaughtering Death: On the Psychoanalysis of Terror, Religion, and Violence.
Brendan Shea, Ph.D., is a permanent faculty member at Rochester Community and Technical college. His research is focused on the philosophy of literature and film, the philosophy of science, and applied ethics.
Phil Smolenski is a Ph.D. student studying philosophy at Queen’s University at Kingston. His primary interests are in Rawls’s political philosophy, but he retains a strong interest in social philosophy, applied ethics, and of course, Fringe events.
Jeffrey E. Stephenson, Ph.D., recently was visiting assistant professor of philosophy at Montana State University, Bozeman. He has published and has research interests in character and morality, social justice and health care, and human subjects research ethics.
Charles Taliaferro, Ph.D., is professor of philosophy at St. Olaf College and is the author or editor of eighteen books, including Turning Images (Oxford University Press), coedited with Jil Evans.
A. P. Taylor, M.A., is a doctoral candidate (ABD) in philosophy at the University at Buffalo. His primary philosophical interests are in metaphysics, personal identity, and ethics.
Michael Versteeg is an independent scholar who is interested in the intersection between history and philosophy and is currently researching empirical evidence of natural law in pre-Christian cultures across the globe.
Elly Vintiadis, Ph.D., is a philosopher currently teaching in Athens, Greece. Her current work is in philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of psychiatry.
Daniel Whiting, Ph.D., is Senior Lecturer in philosophy at the University of Southampton, UK. He has published numerous articles in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and epistemology, as well as in the history of philosophy. He is the editor of The Later Wittgenstein on Language.