List of Contributors

Steve Bein is True Blade of Southwest Ohio, Bearer of the Holy Gradebook, Defender of the Wall of Students Writing Their Own Papers Instead of Letting AI Do It, Translator of Watsuji, Kyoshi of Bujin Bugei Jutsu, Lord of Stately Bein Manor, and Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dayton. His research interests include Japanese philosophy, Buddhism, environmental ethics, applied ethics, and philosophy and science fiction. Steve has contributed chapters to fourteen volumes on pop culture and philosophy on topics ranging from LEGO to Wonder Woman. The big philosophical question that drives him these days is, if duty is as heavy as a mountain, then why is it so easy to put off unwanted tasks until the last minute?

Jeremy Christensen, a doctoral candidate in English at the University of South Dakota, has taught rhetoric, argumentation, composition, public speaking, and literature for twenty years. His research interests are in Appalachian folklore, rhetoric, and critical theory. His affection, however, is reserved for his three children, his wife, and many, many good friends, who are the source of the One Power in his life.

Roderick Cooke teaches French literature and culture at Villanova University. He is the author of The Dreyfus Affair's Literary Politics (2023), and works on literature from the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan, in addition to France. He is interested in how philosophical ideas are used in works of fiction, and is writing a book that examines this topic in the French tradition from the Enlightenment to the present day. He first discovered The Wheel of Time as an excuse not to revise properly for high school exams in 1990s England, and never imagined that one day he'd get credit from his job for writing about it.

Benjamin B. DeVan is the Chair and Associate Professor of Ethics and Organizational Behavior at Palm Beach Atlantic University. He has taught Asian philosophy, philosophy of moral leadership, philosophy of social science, psychology of cultural diversity, marriage and family, and the Bible. Compared to Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, his writing output is incredibly slim, hovering around seventy-five articles, chapters, reference entries, poems, and reviews such as "Do Not Look Up? Four Views on Heaven," "High Rule? Vintage Virtue in The Legend of Zelda," "Royal Righteousness in the Ramayana? Faithful Leadership in India's Mythic Masterpiece," and "Love Is Universal: AI, Angels, and Astrobiology at the Ends of Space and Time."

Caitlynn Fletcher, an undergraduate student at Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, graduating in spring of 2025, is a biology major minoring in philosophy and classical philology. Long enamored with The Wheel of Time, she is always willing and able to discuss ideas, plot elements, and details from the series.

Tobias T. Gibson is a Professor of Political Science and Security Studies at Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri. He was introduced to The Wheel of Time in the early 1990s, and it immediately became his favorite book series. He has published three coedited volumes, including the recent International Security Studies and Technology (2024). He has also written about the philosophy of The Princess Bride and Better Call Saul.

Maja Griem is Science Manager for the Center for Mind and Cognition at Ruhr-University Bochum. Her doctoral dissertation focused on animal social cognition, especially empathy, play, and attention guidance. Her fascination with communication across species motivated her dive into the research area of human-animal studies. Alas, the ever-spinning Wheel of Time did not see her fate as a Wolfsister with the ability to telepathically communicate with her pets-yet. However, she never gave up trying to understand them. Finishing the animal psychology course at the ATN (Academy for Applied Animal Psychology and Animal Behavior Training) is the closest she has come to telepathically connecting with animals possible in our mundane world without the One Power.

Jacob M. Held is Professor of Philosophy and Assistant Provost for Academic Assessment and General Education at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, Arkansas. He's a philosophical generalist who works primarily at the intersection of philosophy and popular culture. He has published over fifty articles or essays and edited or coedited ten books, including Wonder Woman and Philosophy: The Amazonian Mystique (2017), Stephen King and Philosophy (2016), and Dr. Seuss and Philosophy: Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! (2011). When he began his career as a philosophy professor, he envisioned a life resembling that of an Aes Sedai joyfully laboring in the White Tower. Most days, however, he feels more like one of the Forsaken.

Eric Holmes is an instructor of writing and public speaking. His primary scholastic interest is horror and he has published works on EC comics, monster lore, and chapters in Stranger Things and Philosophy (2019), Neon Genesis Evangelion and Philosophy (2022), and Anthony Bourdain and Philosophy (2024).

Tim Jones is Course Leader of City College Norwich's BA (Hons) in psychology with sociology, where he also teaches access to higher education. He is reminded each day that, much like the turning of the Wheel of Time, there are neither beginnings nor endings to the marking workload.

Dean A. Kowalski is a Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the College of General Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He regularly teaches philosophy of religion, Asian philosophy, and ethics. He has authored, edited, or coedited a dozen books, each with a connection to popular culture, including Joss Whedon as Philosopher (2017), Indiana Jones and Philosophy (2023), and the Palgrave Handbook of Popular Culture as Philosophy (2024). Although he can neither sing, dance, juggle, nor play an instrument, he fancies himself as a fantabulous gleeman.

Julie Loveland Swanstrom is an Associate Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Environmental Studies at Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She received her PhD in philosophy from Purdue University and teaches a range of courses spanning philosophy, theology, ethics, and environmental culture. She also uses philosophical and theological methods and ideas to explore science fiction and fantasy works. Her work on medieval theories of causation made her a strong Aes Sedai candidate to join the Browns-you can find her in the library looking up odd and curious cases of causation in order to explore presumptions people hold about causation.

Steven Michels is a Professor of Political Science at Sacred Heart University and the author of Sinclair Lewis and American Democracy (2017) and the editor of Scenes from the American Working Class: This Hard Land (2025). Like Thom Merrilin, he enjoys performing songs, but unlike the gleeman, he does not do much traveling or have much in the way of talent.

Traci Phillipson is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. She specializes in the history of philosophy with a focus on medieval philosophy in the Arabic and Latin traditions. She also works and teaches in ethics and the philosophy of religion. She has a burgeoning interest in public philosophy and philosophy in pop culture, having contributed to two past volumes of the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series.

Kenneth R. Pike is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Law at the Florida Institute of Technology. His research applies moral and political theory to technology, family, and law. Among his publications are "The Doctrine of Sufficiency as a Contractualist Principle" (in Moral Philosophy and Politics, 2024) and "Secher Nbiw and the Child's Right to an Open Future" (in Dune and Philosophy, 2023). As a teenager he memorized poetry from Lord of Chaos; in college he studied creative writing with Brandon Sanderson. Today Kenneth spends most of his time imagining ways to prevent gholam from slipping under his office door.

Kenneth Silver is an Associate Professor at Trinity College Dublin. He works within the philosophy of action and business ethics, and his central focus is on corporate moral responsibility and corporate personhood. Though an American possessing a doctorate in philosophy, Dr. Silver finds himself employed by a business school abroad because the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.

Andrew D. Thrasher is an Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies at George Mason University and in the Virginia Community College System. He is the lead coeditor (with Austin M. Freeman) of Theology, Fantasy, and the Imagination (2023), where he contributed an interreligious analysis of The Wheel of Time. He is also author of An Advaitic Modernity? Raimon Panikkar and Philosophical Theology (2024), and Post-Christian Religion in Popular Culture: Theology Through Exegesis (2024). He has been fascinated with religious and philosophical dimensions of The Wheel of Time since high school, and though he relates with Mat's phrase of being lost in his own mind, he is far more like Perrin in build and demeanor. While not a wolf-brother per se, he has repeatedly been compared to a bear, both in his grizzly demeanor and how much he sleeps in...