Call for Abstracts

Doctor Strange and Philosophy

Edited by Mark D. White

The Blackwell Philosophy and Popular Culture Series

Please circulate and post widely.

Apologies for cross posting.

To propose ideas for future volumes in the Blackwell series please contact the Series Editor, William Irwin, at williamirwin@kings.edu

If you have comments or criticisms for the series, please contact the series editor after reading “Fancy Taking a Pop?” and “Writing for the Reader: A Defense of Philosophy and Popular Culture Books”

Abstracts and subsequent essays should be philosophically substantial but accessible, written to engage the intelligent lay reader. Contributors of accepted essays will receive an honorarium.

Possible themes and topics might include, but are not limited to, the following:

“Reality is one of many”: The metaphysics of parallel dimensions and the Marvel multiverse; “You’re just another tiny, momentary speck within an indifferent universe.” Existentialism, nihilism, and the meaning of life for Doctor Strange; Time travel and Doctor Strange’s infinite loops; Doctor Strange’s astral self and the mind-body problem; “I don’t believe fairy tales about chakras or energy or the power of belief”: When Western and Eastern Medicine Meet; “Forget everything that you think you know” about the nature of time; “I’ve Come to Bargain”: Strange, Sisyphus, and a fate surmounted by scorn; Doctor Strange, the Űbermensch, and Eternal Recurrence; Going to Katmandu: Hinduism, Buddhism, the one and the all; “Letting go”: The Tao of the Ancient One; “It’s not all about you”: Doctor Strange’s fall from pride and the need for humility; The nature of evil, Dormammu, and the Dark Dimension; Zombies and the Mindless Ones; Strange, Mordo, and the Ancient One: Mentorship and betrayal; The medical ethics of Doctor Strange; Natural law and breaking its “rules”; “He deceives you. His eternal life is not paradise but torment.” The Ancient One, Bernard Williams, and the tedium of immortality; The hero’s secret: Are there good reasons to lie?; The ethics of thought control and memory manipulation; Eternity: Is the universe sentient?; Stephen and Clea: The mystical rules of love; The Manipulators Supreme: Doctor Strange and the Illuminati; Does Doctor Supreme need to be supreme? Ego and defining success; Doctors Strange and Doom: Mirror images; The Strange conflict between medicine and magic; Avenger and Defender: Doctor Strange and teamwork; “A man looking at the world through a keyhole”: Where Does Science End and Magic Begin?; The Library at Kamar-Taj and Forbidden knowledge: Are there things we should not know?; “Time will tell how much I love you.”: Strange’s difficulties with love and friendship.

Submission Guidelines: