Mark D. White

After our commencement exercises yesterday, my 27th year at the College of Staten Island is over; as of June 30, my 14th and final year as department chair will be over as well. (Although my able successor officially takes over on July 1, I will continue as summer department chair until the fall semester begins on August 25.) At that point, I will have three more years to go until I retire, but they will be three years of teaching and routine committee work, which I anticipate being a tremendous relief from the responsibilities of being chair (which grew much more onerous and frustrating over the last few years).

My main publication activity this semester was my book Ethics of the Fantastic Four, which came out earlier this month (as reported in my last post). Now that the semester is over, I will return to my other book projects, which my very patient and understanding editors, to whom I remain eternally grateful, eagerly await.

Online, I published a series of posts about Captain America (Sam Wilson) at Psychology Today based on material in the second edition of The Virtues of Captain America (published last summer), to coincide with the release of the film Captain America: Brave New World in February:

• Exploring the Virtues of a New Captain America
• How Important Is Race to the New Captain America?
• Sam Wilson's Parents and His Approach to Captain America
• Sam Wilson's Proactive Approach to Being Captain America
• How Sam Wilson Represents as Captain America

I also published two new posts about the show Daredevil: Born Again in March, partially based on my book A Philosopher Reads… Marvel Comics' Daredevil:

• Balancing Grace and Retribution in “Daredevil: Born Again”
• Daredevil, Born Again: Making the Case for Virtue Ethics

Work also continues on The Virtues of Captain America Blog, now up to the middle of 1999, and I plan to launch a similar blog for the Fantastic Four this summer (tentatively titled "Here's the Thing… A Lighthearted and Occasionally Enlightening Blog about the Fantastic Four").

In other news, I was very proud to watch my daughter graduate from college last week, and I've continued to see many great concerts with my son (still in high school), most recently Arch Enemy, Emperor, and Revocation, as well as dropping loads of filthy lucre at the many splendid record stores of north/central New Jersey.

Let's all have the summer we want and deserve, whatever that may mean to you…