Dr. Seuss and Philosophy - Jacob M. Held [154]
17. Nel, Dr. Seuss: American Icon, 14.
18. For discussions of the relation between business and the environment and the responsibility of businesses to interests outside of themselves see Johann A. Klaassen and Mari-Gretta G. Klaassen, “Speaking for Business, Speaking for Trees: Business and Environment in The Lorax,” and Matthew F. Pierlott, “It’s Not Personal . . . It’s Just Bizzyneuss: Business Ethics, the Company, and Its Stakeholders,” respectively, in the present volume.
19. Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel, 223.
20. Morgan and Morgan, Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel, 249.
21. If none of the aesthetic theories covered in this chapter appeal to you, I recommend: Noël Carroll, A Philosophy of Mass Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) or Denis Dutton, The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009).
The Menagerie: Author Biographies
Thomas M. Alexander is a professor at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He is mainly known as a Dewey scholar, but he also teaches classical philosophy and has an active interest in Buddhism and Native American culture. He grew up in New Mexico. His father was also a professor of philosophy, as was his father.
Randall E. Auxier teaches philosophy at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He lives with four very creative but temperamental cats and one similarly talented spouse. Only Dr. Seuss could possibly come up with a suitable rhyme for his last name, but he enjoys thinking about what sort of creature might bear the name of a Snauxier.
Henry Cribbs serves on the editorial board for Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry at the University of Tulsa, pens a monthly column for Redstone Science Fiction, and in his spare time publishes poetry about Schrödinger’s cat. He taught logic, ethics, rhetoric, and poetics for several years at the University of South Carolina before deciding he could better corrupt the youth if he taught those subjects to actual youths. Now he masquerades as a high school English teacher somewhere in Oklahoma not very far from Flobbertown, where he forces his students to read Seuss alongside Shakespeare and Sophocles and strives to make every day a Diffendoofer Day.
Anthony Cunningham is professor of philosophy at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. He is the author of The Heart of What Matters: The Role for Literature in Moral Philosophy. He works in ethics, with a special interest in literature, and has published in the American Philosophical Quarterly, the Journal of Value Inquiry, Mind, and Ethics. Fortunately, he has never even thought about stealing Christmas, not a bit, not a sliver.
Jacob M. Held is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Central Arkansas. He has written extensively at the intersection of philosophy and popular culture, having coedited (with James South) James Bond and Philosophy: Questions Are Forever (Open Court, 2006) and contributed to volumes on the Beatles, South Park, and Watchmen, to name a few. He has also written more “respectable” academic pieces on topics such as Kant, Marx, obscenity law and free speech, and applied ethics. He currently spends the majority of his time avoiding Hakken-Kraks and Poozers and trying to ignore that there is a 1 and ¼ percent chance he won’t succeed.
Tanya Jeffcoat is an instructor of philosophy at the University of Central Arkansas, where she teaches courses on American pragmatism, feminism, and world philosophies. Her recent writing has focused on John Dewey, ecological individualism, sustainability, and issues in diversity—all of which are currently looking for academic homes. When she’s not dreaming of Truffula Trees, Brown Bar-ba-loots, and Swomee-Swans, she’s trying to convince her students that nothing will get better unless we start caring a whole awful lot.
Johann A. Klaassen is vice president of Managed Account Solutions for, and a member of the Investment Committee of, First Affirmative Financial Network,