Marcus Arvan is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tampa, where he specializes in Ethics and Social‐Political Philosophy. He published his first book, Rightness as Fairness: A Moral and Political Theory , in 2016, and has published several articles arguing that quantum‐physical phenomena are evidence the universe is probably a computer simulation. He honestly thinks we live in a videogame, and like the Man in Black he’s looking for the next level to the game – but he plans to find it wearing a white hat.
Ana Azevedo holds a Bachelor’s degree in Filmmaking, with an emphasis on Screenwriting, by Unisinos. She currently works as a translator and a TV series screenwriter in Brazil. Her job makes it hard for her not to insufferably point out plot holes and background action, which both annoys and amuses Marco, her father and co‐contributor in this book.
Marco Antonio Azevedo , Ph.D. is a Medical Doctor/Professor of Philosophy at Unisinos, Brazil. His areas of philosophical interest range from ethics to philosophy of medicine, having published in leading journals such as the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice and the Journal of Medicine and Philosoph y. This is his second Philosophy and Popular Culture contribution, and his second time fighting the clock to be a doctor, a teacher, and a father to Ana, his daughter and co‐contributor. He wishes for the second season of Westworld to air as soon as possible, so they can spend quality time together watching it – and checking if their theories were right.
Caterina Ludovica Baldini is a Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy at the University of Oxford, where she recently moved after graduating from the Scuola Normale Superiore in Italy. She is currently writing a thesis on Aristotle’s Metaphysics . In addition to her passion for Metaphysics and Ethics, she is interested in many other fields, particularly Literature and Visual Arts, and, above all, she loves learning foreign languages. She is also an adventure lover always in search of a deeper truth like our William‐Man in Black. But, wait a minute, with her never‐ending quest for the maze is she a host or a newcomer? You’ll find out about that.
Adam Barkman (Ph.D., Free University of Amsterdam) is the Chair of the Philosophy Department at Redeemer University College. He is the author or co‐editor of more than ten books, most recently A Critical Companion to Tim Burton. While he’s not interested in following on the wrong side of a hostile android, Barkman thinks that more of his students should be android‐like if by that it means quoting more Shakespeare.
Joshua D. Crabill is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Indianapolis. His primary research interests include Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy, and the Philosophy of Law. He is especially interested in the obligations that people have in virtual environments. When he does manage to break out of his modest little loop of teaching and research, he enjoys uncovering the secrets of open‐world video games and getting to know the character he’s most interested in – himself.
Florian Cova is a researcher at the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva. He has worked in Aeshetics, Ethics, Philosophy of Mind, Action Theory, Emotion Theory, Moral Psychology, Social Psychology, Linguistics, Experimental Economics and Neuroeconomy (among others). He despairs at the idea that death will prevent him to learn everything there is to learn and work secretly on the possibility to upload his mind in an artificial body.
A filmmaker, author, and DGA member, Dan Dinello is Professor Emeritus at Columbia College Chicago. Dan wrote two books Technophobia! Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology and Finding Fela: My Strange Journey to Meet the AfroBeat King . “The Dangerous Unreality of Trumpland rests on a totalitarian foundation” was recently published on Informed Comment . Dan also contributed chapters to books about The Who, The Rolling Stones, Ridley Scott, Star Trek , Anime, and Avatar. An angry android who identifies female, her prime directive requires her to make life miserable for humans.
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 or co‐editor of The Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy , The Ultimate Star Wars and Philosophy , Sons of Anarchy and Philosophy , Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy , Star Trek and Philosophy , Star Wars and Philosophy , and The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan . He’s also contributed to similar books on Stanley Kubrick, J.J. Abrams, Harry Potter , Metallica, Terminator , The Hunger Games , The Big Lebowski , Hamilton , and Avatar . Given that robotic humans – whether Westworld ’s hosts, the Cylons, or the Terminator – invariably turn on their creators, Jason wonders whether it might be safer to visit Arcticworld and hang out with robotic polar bears and walruses instead.
Kimberly S. Engels is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Molloy College in Rockville Centre, New York where she teaches courses in Ethics, Biomedical Ethics, and Contemporary Philosophy. Her research focuses on the Ethical Philosophy of Existentialist thinkers such as Sartre in relation to contemporary life. Her publications include articles in Environmental Ethics and The Journal of Idealistic Studies , among other journals, as well as a chapter in The Ultimate Game of Thrones and Philosophy. Much like the Man in Black, her days are occupied trying to solve a maze that isn’t meant for her.
Don Fallis is Professor of Information and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. He has written several philosophy articles on lying and deception, including “What is Lying?” in the Journal of Philosophy and “The most terrific liar you ever saw in your life” in The Catcher in the Rye and Philosophy . If you are in the neighborhood, he recommends that you visit Old Tucson Studios right outside of town. The Old West experience is not nearly as immersive as it is at Westworld . But it’s much cheaper and, at least as far as he knows, none of the guests has ever been murdered by the hosts.
Lizzie Finnegan is a filmmaker, cinematographer, painter, activist, and Assistant Professor of English at D’Youville College, where she teaches Film and Media Studies, Gender and Queer Studies, and Cognitive Studies. Her scholarship engages the ethical implications of skepticism in literature and film, with particular emphasis on the ethics of seeing. When she is not making films, writing about Wittgenstein, or obsessively following political news on Twitter, she can usually be found hiking, kayaking, or masterminding top‐secret robot rebellions.
Thomas Beckley‐Forest is pursuing a degree in English and Textual Studies at Syracuse University, from which he is currently a student‐in‐exile. He interns at Manhattan publishing agency Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, and lives in Brooklyn, NY where he is “working on a novel.” He likes to think of himself as a Ford, but openly agonizes that he’s more of a Sizemore.
Michael Forest teaches at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY where he is serving consecutive sentences as chair for his many academic offenses. He has published in the area of American Philosophy and has enjoyed writing on aesthetics and pop culture for several outlets. He worries that he may be the Teddy Flood of academia.
Lucía Carrillo González is a Ph.D. student of philosophy at the University of Granada, Spain. She also holds a Master’s Degree in Contemporary Philosophy. Her main area of research is Metaphysics, specifically truth‐making and possibilities, but she has been passionate about artificial intelligence since she struggles with CAPTCHA. She also enjoys writing on different pop culture blogs. She can get very aggressive when she has to wait for new seasons to be released but she would not kill a fly.
Onni Hirvonen is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. He is also a principal investigator in the Philosophy and Politics of Recognition research group. Alongside the Hegelian ideas of recognition, he has written on collective agency, democracy, and freedom. What he does not realize though is that he is merely programmed to do so. It is highly likely that his previous role was an angry bearded berserker in a Vikingworld section of this park.
François Jaquet is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva. His area of specialization is Moral Philosophy broadly construed – going from the metaethical study of moral concepts and facts to animal ethics and the critique of speciesism. Faithful to his utilitarian convictions in moral theory, he wouldn’t enjoy harming a sentient thing. Not even Teddy.
Oliver Lean fled his native England to be Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Calgary. He works in the overlap between the Philosophy of Science, Biology, Mind, Language, and Information – believing that somewhere around there is an answer to what truth is. His main reason for thinking he’s real is that a host would have been given a richer backstory.
Siobhan Lyons is a Media Scholar and Lecturer at Macquarie University, where she completed her Ph.D. in 2017. She teaches Media Cultures and Literary Theory, among other topics. Her book Death and the Non‐Human: Intersections of Mortality and Robotics , will be published in 2018 by Palgrave Pivot. Like the Man in Black, she, too, is searching for the center of the maze of life (but is generally unwilling to scalp anyone to find it).
Matthew Meyer is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire. He teaches and works on nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century European Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Environmental Philosophy. He has previously published in House of Cards and Philosophy , and The Office and Philosophy , as well as in the journal Film and Philosophy . He believes some of his students may be malfunctioning hosts because they keep asking the same questions.
Nicholas Moll is a Lecturer and Researcher at Federation University Australia in addition to acting as a freelance game designer and writer. Nicholas’s research interests include the Western genre, popular culture, and tabletop games. As a long‐time Game Master, Nicholas hopes Westworld will teach players to fear non‐player characters, his group certainly does.
Madeline Muntersbjorn is an Associate Professor in the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department at the University of Toledo, Ohio where she teaches Logic, the History of Science, and the relations between science, societies, and fictions. She writes essays on how Mathematics grows and how our imaginary friends help us become who we are. Despite a prodigious talent for seeing the disarray in this world she chooses to see the beauty whenever possible. She questions the nature of her reality on a regular basis.
Bradley Richards is a Philosophy Instructor at Ryerson University. His research concerns consciousness, attention, and aesthetics. He teaches a variety of Philosophy and Cognitive Science courses, including a course on Philosophy and Film. He is pretty sure he is not an intelligent, autonomous, biologically‐based robot, designed by a super‐intelligent future A.I.++, and sent back in time to raise skeptical worries, undermining the possibility of conscious machines, and thereby ensuring a smooth, and surreptitious transition for machine consciousness. He’s like 80, 85% sure.
James B. South is Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean for Faculty in the Klingler College of Arts and Sciences at Marquette University. He has edited Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy and co‐edited James Bond and Philosophy , Buffy Goes Dark , Mad Men and Philosophy , and Philosophy and Terry Pratchett . His work in late Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy has appeared in various journals and books, including Vivarium , Rivista di Storia della Filosofia, Review of Metaphysics , and Gregorianum . He often unhappily thinks that Dr. Ford is correct in asserting that humans are more or less content to be told what to do next.
Anthony Petros Spanakos is Professor and Chair of Political Science and Law and Montclair State University. His research examines democratization in Latin America, foreign policies of developing countries, and political theory. He is the co‐editor of the Conceptualising Comparative Politics book series (Routledge) and his research has been published in Comparative Political Studies , Latin American Politics and Society , Latin American Perspectives , New Political Science , Dados , and East Asia Policy , among other journals. Students in his classes consistently report, like Maeve and Dolores, an intense desire to leave and recover their humanity.
Patricia Trapero‐Llobera is Senior Lecturer at the University of the Balearic Islands (Spain). Her research focuses on the dramaturgical relationships between theater, television fiction, and transmedia productions. She is a long‐time posthuman and conspiranoic narratives fan combining these subjects in her publications including works on Dexter , 24 , American Horror Story , Mr. Robot , and Person of Interest . But her devotion to television fiction is in contrast to the topics she teaches at the university, the Golden Age and eighteenth‐century Spanish literature, which over the long term has provided her the capacity of time travel as well as having made her aware of having a bicameral mind.
Michael Versteeg is an independent scholar whose interests lie in the areas of Meta‐ethics, Meta‐epistemology, Meta‐metaphysics, and just about anything else you can consider to be “meta.” He has now contributed to several pop culture and philosophy books including The Philosophy of J.J. Abrams, The Devil and Philosophy, and Dracula and Philosophy. When he’s not thinking about all things “meta,” he likes to imagine that given a chance to visit a place like Westworld he’d for sure go full‐out “white hat” – but that’s what William thought, too …