Stephen T. Asma

Stephen T. Asma (born 1966) is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia College Chicago, where he holds the title of Distinguished Scholar.^[1]

Asma’s scholarship has been divided into issues relating to the philosophy of the Life Sciences, and issues relating to Religion and Science (especiallyBuddhism and Christianity).

In 2003, he was Visiting Professor at the Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia. There, he taught Buddhist Philosophy as part of their pilot Graduate Program in Buddhist Studies, and he studied Theravada Buddhism throughout Southeast Asia. His book, entitled The Gods Drink Whiskey: Stumbling Toward Enlightenment in the Land of the Tattered Buddha (HarperOne) chronicles his time spent in Asia.^[2] Asma also lived and studied in Shanghai, China in 2006.

Stephen Asma is the author of several books: Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: The Culture and Evolution of Natural History Museums (Oxford, 2001;2003)^[3], Following Form and Function (Northwestern Univ. Press, 1996)^[4], and Buddha for Beginners (Hampton Roads, 2009, originally published in 1996 by Writers and Readers).^[5] He has written articles on a broad range of topics that bridge the humanities and sciences, including “Against Transcendentalism” in the book Monty Python and Philosophy (Opencourt Press, 2006) and [“Dinosaurs on the Ark: Natural History and the New Creation Museum”]^[6] in The Chronicle of Higher Education (May, 2007). He has also written for the Chicago Tribune, In These Times magazine, the Skeptical Inquirer, the Skeptic magazine, and Chicago Public Radio's news-magazine show Eight-Forty-Eight.

Asma’s natural history of “monsters” will be published by Oxford University Press in 2009. In this book, titled On Monsters, Asma tours Western culture's worst nightmares.^[7] It begins with the Ancient Greeks, examining Alexander's letter to Aristotle about the monsters of India. The book tours a landscape of medieval monsters, Darwinian monsters, Freudian monsters, contemporary political monsters, and then culminates with an examination of our biotech monsters to come. Along the way, readers learn about dog-headed saints, apocalyptic hydras, demons, witches, evolutionary hopeful monsters, psychotic serial-killers, and more. Asma’s analysis of monster-killer, Beowulf, was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education (“Never Mind Grendel! Can Beowulf Conquer the 21st-Century Guilt Trip?” in Chronicle Review, December 2007).^[8]

Asma has also worked as an illustrator for his own book Buddha for Beginners (Hampton Roads, 2009), and as a professional musician. He was a fixture in the Chicago Blues scene during the 1990s (e.g., playing guitar with band “Howard and the White Boys,” with Bo Diddley, touring with Buddy Guy, opening for B.B. King, Junior Wells, Koko Taylor, and more).^[9] He also played in the Acid-Jazz scene of the late 1990s and early2000s with Chicago band “Peking Turtle.” In 2007 he released a solo CD under the name “Axle-man” for the “Academy of Fists” record label.^[10] In 2008 he began recording and performing with a 1930s-era swing jazz acoustic combo, “Doctor Swing.”^[11]

Books:

On Monsters: A Tour of Fears and Fascinations. Oxford University Press (forthcoming 2009)

Why I am a Buddhist. Hampton Roads Publishing (forthcoming 2009)

The Gods Drink Whiskey: Stumbling Toward Enlightenment in the Land of the Tattered Buddha. HarperCollins San Francisco June 1, 2005 (paper 2006)

Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: The Culture and Evolution of Natural History Museums. Oxford University Press, New York. April, 2001 (paperback May 2003).

Buddha for Beginners. Writers and Readers Publishing Inc, 1996. Revised and republished by Hampton Roads Publishing, 2009.

Following Form and Function: A Philosophical Archaeology of Life Science. Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy Series, Northwestern University Press. December 1996.

Articles:

“Trapped in the Creation Museum” in the Chicago Tribune Magazine, January 20, 2008.

“Never Mind Grendel! Can Beowulf Conquer the 21st-Century Guilt Trip?” in The Chronicle of Higher Education; Chronicle Review, December 2007.

“Looking Up from the Gutter: Pop-culture and Philosophy” in The Chronicle of Higher Education; Chronicle Review, October 2007)

“Holy Toyland” in In These Times magazine, October 2007

“Dinosaurs on the Ark: Natural History and the New Evangelical Museum” in The Chronicle of Higher Education. (The Chronicle Review magazine, May 18, 2007); reprinted as “Solomon’s House” in Skeptic magazine Vol.13, No.2.

“How to Survive the Apocalypse” in The Skeptical Inquirer (Summer, 2007)

“Against Transcendentalism: The Meaning of Life and Buddhism” in Monty Python and Philosophy, edited by George Reisch and Gary Hardcastle (Open Court Publishing, Spring 2006)

“My Teaching Experience in Cambodia” in The Chronicle of Higher Education. April. 22 2005. (The Chronicle Review magazine).

“’Mass Delusion’ or ‘True Myth’? PBS Considers The Question of God” in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Sept. 10 2004. (The Chronicle Review magazine) Reprinted in Skeptic magazine, February 2005. Reprinted as “The God Question” (a review of a documentary film comparing the ideas of C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud) in Skeptic magazine (Vol. 11, no. 3, 2005).

“Is ‘The Blues’ Black Enough?” in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Sept. 26 2003. (The Chronicle Review magazine).

“Blues Man on a Mojo Mission” in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Nov. 8, 2002. (The Chronicle Review magazine).

“A Portrait of the Artist as a Work in Progress” in The Chronicle of Higher Education. January 19, 2001. (The Chronicle Review magazine).

“Reel to Real” in The Chronicle of Higher Education. January 15, 1999 issue. B6-7.

“Darwin’s Causal Pluralism” in Biology & Philosophy Vol. 11, No.1 January 1996,1-20.

“Metaphors of Race: Theoretical Presuppositions Behind Racism” in American Philosophical Quarterly. Vol. 32 January 1995, 13-29.

“The Blues Artist as Cultural Rebel” in The Humanist July/August 1997.

“Abortion and the Embarrassing Saint” in The Humanist May/June 1994.Reprinted in the Abortion anthology, Current Controversies Series by Greenhaven Press 1994.

“The New Social Darwinism: Deserving Your Destitution” in The Humanist Sept/Oct. 1993.

References

1. http://www.colum.edu/Academics/Liberal_Education/faculty/Stephen_Asma.php

2. http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/27669/Stephen_T_Asma/index.aspx

3. http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/LifeSciences/HistoryPhilosophyofBiology/?view=usa&ci=9780195163360

4. http://www.kli.ac.at/theorylab/AuthPage/A/AsmaST.html

5. http://www.hamptonroadspub.com/author/346

6. http://www.beliefnet.com/story/219/story_21924_1.html

7.http://web.mac.com/stephenasma/iWeb/Site%2014/On%20Monsters.html

8. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i15/15b00101.htm

9. http://www.answers.com/topic/howard-the-white-boys

10. http://www.academy-of-fists.com/artists.html