Stephen Colbert and Philosophy - Aaron Allen Schiller [135]
SOPHIA STONE is a PhD hopeful in the Philosophy and Literature program at Purdue University. Her specialty is the study of ethics and humor, as you need one to do the other. She received her MA in Philosophy from those funny Catholics at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology. Her thesis, “The Good, The True, and The Funny: Plato and His Philosophy of Humor,” passed with honors and was the first of several attempts of her writing about the philosophy of humor which was finally taken seriously. She earned her BA in Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where she received the Finkeldink Tiddlywink award for Erotic Origami Sculpture.
RACHAEL SOTOS is an adjunct professor at New York City College of Technology in Brooklyn. As an undergraduate she studied political theory at the University of California, Santa Cruz and later received her PhD in philosophy from the New School for Social Research. She is presently the parent/guardian of a sixteen-year-old and pursuing a second doctorate in classics at Fordham University. Her dissertation in philosophy, Arendtian Freedom in Greek Antiquity, is a sympathetic critique of the political theorist Hannah Arendt, and will be published as a book. Her interests range from environmental philosophy and feminist theory to pre-Socratic philosophy and ancient Greek Comedy. As soon as her ward helps her to figure out this “internets” thing, she is going to put an order in for some of Stephen Colbert’s “manseed.”
JASON SOUTHWORTH is an ABD graduate student at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma, and is also an adjunct instructor of philosophy at Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas. He has contributed articles to several pop culture and philosophy volumes, including Batman and Philosophy, Heroes and Philosophy, and X-Men and Philosophy. While Jason likes the Colbert Report enough to write an article for this volume, he would still like to see Stephen find the time to give us more Strangers with Candy.
MICHAEL TIBORIS is a PhD candidate in philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. He wonders whether he will be put “on notice” for his dissertation: “Anarchy, State, and Bear-topia.”
ROBEN TOROSYAN is associate director of the Center for Academic Excellence at Fairfield University, Connecticut, where he teaches philosophy (undergrad) and curriculum and instruction (graduate). A facilitator of faculty development, he has been invited presenter at thirty teaching conferences, where many participants were not paid to attend. His scholarship on transformation and communication has appeared in scholarly and lay publications—including on Critical Thinking and the War on Bullshit in The Daily Show and Philosophy. Roben managed to finagle a PhD in Cultural Studies, Philosophy, and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. He’s moved by not only himself but also by his latest and most glorious student, new daughter Catherine Anne, who should teach him a thing or two for the rest of his life.
As a Canadian, SAMANTHA WEBB grew up at a serious disadvantage. She was suspicious of maple syrup, feared bears, disliked hockey, and always had a vague feeling that she was living in Greenland’s Mexico. Luckily, she was able to escape over the border fence into the U.S., where she learned how to speak American and love freedom. She now teaches English (or rather American) at the University of Montevallo