Everyone Remembers Their First Time
: About the authors, nearly all of whom have an ‘s’ in their name.
STEPHEN ASMA
holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale and he is currently a professor at Columbia College, Chicago. He is the author of several books, including
The Gods Drink Whiskey: Stumbling Toward Enlightenment in the Land of the Tattered Buddha
and
Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: The Culture and Evolution of Natural History Museums
. He was corrupted by
Monty Python’s Flying Circus
reruns at a young age, and credits this as the origin of his lifelong pursuit of profound absurdity. His website is
www.stephenasma.com
.
RANDALL E. AUXIER
first learned of Monty Python at the tender age of sixteen in 1977, attending the FM-100 Midnight Flicks at the Plaza Theatre in Memphis, Tennessee, where
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
was showing. Whether it was on account of the drugs or the movie (he cannot be certain), this was the one and only time he ever physically rolled into the aisle laughing at a movie (during King Arthur’s battle with the Black Knight), which was especially noteworthy since he did not have an aisle seat. He teaches philosophy at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, and knows the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow.
BRUCE BALDWIN
hails presently from the University of Free Slough, where he teaches courses on Ludwig Wittgenstein, political science, and the theory of opaque names. He is the author of
several articles as well as
Getting Perfectly Clear: An Introduction to Political Theory
(Camford University Press). He met the members of Monty Python in England in the early 1970s, a meeting that, as his contribution to this volume recounts, set off a chain of events that affected him professionally and personally.
HARRY BRIGHOUSE
is Professor of Philosophy and Affiliate Professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and author of numerous papers on political philosophy, philosophy of education, and educational policy. He has unnerving expertise on the history of British comedy, especially the prehistory of Monty Python, having spent his formative years doing very little other than listening to
Round The Horne
,
Hancock’s Half Hour
,
Men from the Ministry
and
I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again
. Although a broadly liberal egalitarian he strongly believes that there should be a law forbidding anyone from watching
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
without first having seen
Spartacus
.
An assistant professor of philosophy at Lehman College of the City University of New York,
ROSALIND CAREY
received the M.A. in Religious Studies and the Ph.D. in Philosophy from Boston University. Co-editor of the
Bertrand Russell Society Quarterly
, her publications include several articles and two books (both forthcoming) on Bertrand Russell’s exchanges with Ludwig Wittgenstein on the nature of philosophy, logic and belief. Rosalind Carey was inducted into a Monty Python fan club as an adolescent, where she has remained ever since.
NOËL CARROLL
, in this life, is Andrew Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Temple University, and the author, most recently, of
Beyond Aesthetics
(2001) and
Engaging the Moving Image
(2003). In ultimate reality, on the other hand, he is a perpetual stand-up comic, eternally auditioning for Monty Python (with no success). Such is the meaning of life.
PATRICK CROSKERY
was a double major in Philosophy and English at the University of Virginia, and received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Chicago. He first started thinking seriously about the philosophical dimensions of Monty Python while teaching with Gary Hardcastle at Virginia Tech;
Gary’s annual Monty Python talk was a highlight of the Philosophy Club speaker series Patrick organized. He is now associate professor of philosophy and director of the Honors Program at Ohio Northern University. His research interests include the philosophical foundations of professional ethics and the implications of intellectual property for political philosophy.
STEPHEN A. ERICKSON
is Professor of Philosophy and the E. Wilson Lyon Professor of Humanities at Pomona College. He received his PhD at Yale (1964) and is author of
Language and Being
,
Human Presence: At the Boundaries of Meaning
, and
The (Coming) Age of Thresholding
, as well as numerous articles in journals such as
The Review of Metaphysics, Man and World, Philosophy Today
,
The Harvard Review of Philosophy,
and
International Philosophical Quarterly
. He lectures worldwide and, having been contacted by John Cleese in the nineties, has done public performances regarding “the meaning of life” with Cleese at several California colleges.
STEVE FAISON
was introduced to Monty Python indirectly when he happened upon
Fawlty Towers
reruns on American Public Television and went in search of more John Cleese. Steve earned his B.A. in philosophy at the University of Colorado at Denver. He is on schedule to receive his Ph.D. in philosophy from Vanderbilt University later this year. Steve recently had his essay on Santayana published in the
Santayana Society Bulletin
. In the near future you can catch Steve teaching at a college or university near you.
GARY HARDCASTLE
first encountered Monty Python by way of the American Corporation for Public Broadcasting and philosophy by way of the University of Pittsburgh, where he received his B.S. in psychology and the history and philosophy of science. He subsequently received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of California—San Diego and has taught philosophy at Virginia Tech, the University of Wisconsin—Stevens Point, Bucknell University, and (currently) Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. He is the editor, with Alan Richardson, of
Logical Empiricism in North America
(2003) and the author of several articles in the philosophy of science and over a thousand emails.
REBECCA HOUSEL
teaches writing and literature in upstate New York where Ecuadorian llamas first introduced her to Monty Python and Spam. She has contributed to
Superheroes and Philosophy
(2005) and
Poker and Philosophy
(2006). Rebecca has also published a series of five children’s novels and writes book reviews and articles for publications like
Redbook
and the
Journal of Popular Culture
. After receiving her B.A. and M.A. in English from the University of Rochester, she traveled to Sydney to complete her doctoral studies at the University of New South Wales, as well as continue her search for the elusive, yet deadly, killer rabbit.
JOHN HUSS
converted to Pythonism on his twelfth birthday at a screening of
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
at the Colonial Twin in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. He received his B.S. in geology from Beloit College, an M.S. in geophysical sciences and a Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science from the University of Chicago, while rocking out with The John Huss Moderate Combo. He is currently Director of the Quantitative Skills Center at Reed College and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Portland State University.
GEORGE REISCH
first glimpsed the life of the mind when, in 1977, he encountered
Monty Python’s Flying Circus
playing on a suburban television set that was not far from Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. His career path thus determined, he studied physics and history and philosophy of science at Bowdoin College and the University of Chicago, and then wrote
How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science
(2005) in a single afternoon. He likes strong coffee, occasionally teaches philosophy at Northwestern University, and edits books at Open Court Publishing Company.
ALAN RICHARDSON
is Professor of Philosophy and Distinguished University Scholar at the University of British Columbia. (No, really.) He is author or editor of many, many things that have ‘logical empiricism’ in the title. When he first started watching
Monty Python’s Flying Circus
, the PBS station in Philadelphia showed it just before Jacob Bronowski’s
The Ascent of Man
. Ever since then he
has felt that a properly cultured life requires a combination of comedy and history and philosophy of science. Currently, he is working with the internationally known cultural critic Lars Adrian Cohn on
elimiDATE and Philosophy
, which will include a special section offering advice for those on the philosophy job market.
KEVIN SCHILBRACK
earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago Divinity School. A philosopher of religions, he is the editor of
Thinking through Myths: Philosophical Perspectives
(2002) and
Thinking through Rituals: Philosophical Perspectives
(2004). He teaches at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, the first college in the world chartered to grant degrees to women and where the students are quite unlike “wicked, bad, naughty Zoot.” His quest is to rehabilitate metaphysics as a form of rational inquiry, and his favorite color is blue. No—black!
EDWARD SLOWIK
became an avid Monty Python fan in his early teens, viewing the original series on public television in Chicago during the mid-1970s. The cumulative effect of watching the show at such a tender age (he did not heed the warnings about “young or more sensitive viewers”) left him incapacitated, such that only an academic career remained open to him. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Ohio State University, specializing in the history and philosophy of science, especially space and time, and Early Modern philosophy. He has many publications in these areas, including
Cartesian Spacetime
(2002). He is Associate Professor in Philosophy at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota.
KURT SMITH
is an Assistant Professor of philosophy at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at Claremont Graduate University. His area of specialization is early modern philosophy, which focuses on theories of perception and representation. He caught a moment of
Monty Python’s Flying Circus
once when he was a kid flipping through channels (very likely racing to ABC in order to get his weekly fix of
The Six Million Dollar Man
). He thinks he saw part of an episode once while stoned as an undergraduate as UC Irvine, but this may have been an episode of
Fawlty Towers
. His contribution here is pretty
much the result of an online postmodern random essay generator. His “turn-ons” are world peace and long walks on the beach. He hopes that this book will sell so that he can score a quick couple of hundred bucks.
MICHELLE SPINELLI
has been an avid fan of British television and movies for the last fifteen years. With a B.A. in English from Oberlin College and an M.A. in Women’s History from Sarah Lawrence College, Michelle has published in the area of women writers and reformers in the United States. She has a strong interest in the history of “madness” and is currently studying how the treatment of individuals with mental illness has changed over time in New York City, where she lives.
JAMES STACEY TAYLOR
first encountered philosophy when growing up in England through watching Monty Python. As a result he came to believe that were he to move to Scotland he would secure instant fame as a great tennis player, and so decided to study for his first degree (an MA.) at St. Andrews University. He went on to complete an M.Litt. at St. Andrews, and then an M.A. and a Ph.D. at Bowling Green State University, Ohio. His most recent books are
Personal Autonomy: New Essays
(2005) and
Stakes and Kidneys: Why Markets in Human Body Parts are Morally Imperative
(2005). He likes bad puns.
What Was All That,Then?
Abraham (Biblical)
absurd, life as
absurd hero, examples of
Adam (Biblical)
Adams, John
Agganna sutta
Agnew, Spiro
analytic philosophy
revolts in
anatta
Anselm, Saint
anthropomorphism
Archimedes
argument
philosophical
value of
Argument from Design
Argument from Miracles
Aristotle
Nicomachean Ethics
Arjuna
Arrested Development
(TV show)
Arthur, King
in
Monty Python and The Holy Grai
Arthurian legend and patriarchy
atomism, philosophical
Augustine, Saint
Austin, J.L.
Ayer, A.J.
Language, Truth, and Logic
Baden-Powell, Sir Robert
Knight’s Code
bad faith
Beethoven, Ludwig van
Bentham, Jeremy
Bergman, Ingmar
The Seventh Seal
Bergson, Henri
Bhagavad Gita
black comedy
Black Knight
blasphemy
versus heresy
Bloke, Mrs. (in
Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life
)
Bosch, Hieronymus
Brahman
Brian (Cohen Maximus) (in
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
)
character of
as existentialist humanist
followers of
growth of
on individuals
miracles of
preaching of