Masters of the Jedi Council

JEROLD J. ABRAMS is Director of the Program in Health Administration and Policy, and Assistant Professor of Business Ethics at Creighton University. He has published several essays on semiotics, ethics, and continental philosophy. It’s true that he’s getting older, and his skin is getting greener. But when nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not. Hm?

 

ROBERT ARP received a Ph.D. in philosophy from Saint Louis University. He has published articles in philosophy of mind, ancient philosophy, modern philosophy, phenomenology, and philosophy of religion. He’s calculated that his chances of successfully making any money doing philosophy are approximately 3,720 to one against.

 

JUDY BARAD is Professor of Philosophy at Indiana State University. She has published several books, including The Ethics of Star Trek, and is currently completing Michael Moore: The American Socrates. In addition to teaching courses in ancient and medieval philosophy, she teaches a course on philosophy and Star Trek. She uses both mind melding and Jedi mind tricks to move back and forth between the Star Trek and Star Wars worlds.

 

CHRISTOPHER M. BROWN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee at Martin. He has published in metaphysics and medieval philosophy and teaches courses in metaphysics, ethics, the philosophy of religion, and the history of philosophy. Inspired by Obi-Wan Kenobi, and fearing that Western civilization as we know it is soon coming to an end, he has found a safe place in northwest Tennessee to hide out with his family until “a new hope” arises.

BRIAN K. CAMERON teaches philosophy and other Jedi mind tricks at Saint Louis University. For a living, he bets on podraces, builds droids in his spare time, and engages in blind conformity.

 

ELIZABETH F. COOKE is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Creighton University. She has published several articles in applied ethics and American philosophy, particularly on Charles S. Peirce and Richard Rorty. She currently trains with the Rebel forces to fight the Evil Empire, although she knows that if they strike her down she will become more powerful than they can possibly imagine.

 

KEVIN S. DECKER teaches philosophy at Saint Louis University and Webster University. He writes on American philosophy, ethics, and social and political thought, and is active in progressive politics. These days, he’s got a bad feeling about this.

 

RICHARD DEES is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Rochester, with secondary appointments in neurology and medical humanities. He writes on political philosophy and has just published a book on the social and conceptual foundations of religious toleration, Trust and Toleration. He also works in medical ethics, and is particularly interested in technologies that enhance neurological functions. With his colleagues in neurology, he is currently looking into ways to increase midi-chlorian levels.

 

JEROME DONNELLY has taught at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), the University of Wisconsin (Madison), and the University of Central Florida (Orlando) from which he recently retired. He has published criticism ranging from neoclassicism to popular culture and maintains that many great works of literature and art have been popular, but that mere popularity isn’t what makes works great. That includes Star Wars.

 

JASON T. EBERL is Assistant Professor and Co-Director of the Master’s degree program in Philosophy at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. He has published in metaphysics, bioethics, and medieval philosophy. He was once involved in a duel at point-blank range, but foolishly waited until the other guy shot first—Thankfully, he missed.

 

SHANTI FADER received a B.A. in English from Mount Holyoke College in 1993. She is currently the associate editor of Parabola magazine (a journal devoted to the study of myth and religious tradition), which has published a number of her essays, stories, and reviews. She can use her own hair to make the Princess Leia buns, and has won awards for her recreation of Padmé’s “picnic dress.”

RICHARD HANLEY is from Australia, where they make the good movies these days, and is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Delaware. He is the author of The Metaphysics of Star Trek, as well as articles on The Matrix, time travel, and more. Rumor has it he’s a protocol droid.

 

JAN-ERIK JONES is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Southern Virginia University. He has published on metaphysics and early modern philosophy, and has been known to subject innocent bystanders to hours of detailed discussions of why lightsabers are impossible—Light doesn’t just stop three feet from its source!!

 

JAMES LAWLER teaches philosophy at SUNY-Buffalo. He has written The Existentialist Marxism of Jean-Paul Sartre, and a book on IQ theory that criticizes biological determinism: IQ, Heritability, and Racism. He has edited a book on the U.S. Constitution, The Dialectic of the U.S. Constitution: Selected Writings of Mitchell Franklin, and participated in a debate on socialism in Market Socialism: The Debate Among Socialists. His current book, Matter and Spirit: The Battle of Metaphysics in Early Modern Philosophy before Kant, will be published by University of Rochester Press. Recognized at the age of two as being strong with the Force, Jim was nevertheless rejected for being “too young.” He never forgave the Council, and chose philosophy instead. This was no accident.

 

JOSEPH W. LONG holds a Master’s degree in philosophy from Colorado State University and is expecting a Ph.D. in philosophy from Purdue University in 2005. He has published articles on epistemology and critical race theory and currently makes his home in northwest Iowa where it is only slightly colder than on Hoth.

 

WALTER ROBINSON, whose Buddhist name is Ritoku (which means “Gathering Virtue”), is a Zen monk and teaches East-West philosophy at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. The focus of his academic interest is Buddhist philosophical psychology, and his fantasy is to discourse with Yoda on Zen koans.

 

WILLIAM O. STEPHENS is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Chair of Classical and Near Eastern Studies at Creighton University. He has published on fate, love, ethics and animals, the concept of the person, sportsmanship and the Cubs fan, and various topics in Stoicism. He can easily be mistaken for a Wookiee when he rouses in the morning.