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:
Mark D. White 
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