Brother John Baptist Santa Ana
is a Benedictine monk of St. Andrew’s Abbey, Valyermo, California. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, graduated from Biola University, and is currently pursuing an ma in theology at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. His interests include martial arts, surfing, and carpentry.
Michael Brodrick
is a philosopher with the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. Previously, he taught philosophy at Vanderbilt University, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Miami University of Ohio, and Arkansas Tech University. He is the author of The Ethics of Detachment in Santayana’s Philosophy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
Drew Chastain
currently teaches as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Loyola University New Orleans and has published numerous chapters and articles on spirituality and meaning in life, which have appeared in various anthologies and journals such as Sophia, Philosophia, Ethical Perspectives, Journal of Philosophy of Life, The Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, and Overheard in Seville. His work explores what it means to be spiritual, the nature of the sacred, and how to better understand spiritual experience and the subjective, experiential aspect of meaning in life.
Kerem Eksen
is an assistant professor of philosophy in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Istanbul Technical University, where he mainly teaches ethics and philosophy of art. His recent work focuses on the aesthetic and ethical elaborations of the notions of style, form, and creativity, from a primarily Nietzschean perspective. From 2000 to 2008, he pursued a semi-professional career in theater as an actor and playwright. He is also the author of three published novels in Turkish.
Matt Fitzgerald
is an endurance-sports author and coach. His many books include The Comeback Quotient, Life Is a Marathon, and Diet Cults. He is a cofounder of 80/20 Endurance, an online coaching resource for endurance athletes, and a co-director of the Coaches of Color Initiative, an organization that seeks to improve diversity in endurance sports.
is University Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health, Professor of Medical Humanities, and Director of the Program on Religion and Population Health at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. He is also Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine, and an Affiliated Member of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. He is a fellow of the American College of Epidemiology and the International Society for Science and Religion. His latest book is Religion and Medicine: A History of the Encounter Between Humanity’s Two Greatest Institutions.
Jason Morgan
is an Associate Professor at Reitaku University in Kashiwa, Japan. He has published several books in Japanese, a book-length translation of a scholarly historical monograph by Hata Ikuhiko, and shorter translations of works by novelist Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, specialist in Chinese political philosophy Mizoguchi Yūzō, and others. Morgan’s latest books in English are Information Regimes during the Cold War in East Asia (Routledge, 2021) and Law and Society in Imperial Japan: Suehiro Izutarō and the Search for Equity (Cambria, 2020). Morgan is a Seirondan columnist for the opinion page of the Sankei Shimbun newspaper in Tokyo and a researcher at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, the Moralogy Foundation, and the Historical Awareness Research Committee.
Rick McNeil
is a psychotherapist and licensed social worker who earned his msw from University of Connecticut. He has a transpersonal, humanistic orientation that honors the wisdom of the body, dreams and unconscious processes. For almost a decade, he studied advanced somatic and gestalt therapy at Hartford Family Institute. He specializes in trauma and attachment and has a private practice in Massachusetts.
Roderick Nicholls
is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Cape Breton University, Nova Scotia, Canada. He has published articles and book chapters that explore issues emerging from the Enlightenment critique of religion, focusing on philosophers such as Voltaire, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Camus. Experiences as a life-long gardener and practitioner of the theatre—he has directed numerous plays as well as publishing articles and book chapters in theatre aesthetics—have helped shape his understanding of non-religious spiritual practices.
is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of South Carolina Aiken. She received her doctorate in sociology from the University of Georgia, her Master of Arts in sociology from the University of South Florida, and Bachelor of Arts degrees in sociology and psychology from the University of Missouri. In addition to teaching and conducting research in substance use, she has taught and published in the areas of racial and gender inequality and social justice.
Jerry S. Piven
is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Rutgers University, where his courses focus on philosophy of psychology, existentialism, phenomenology, and ethics. He is the author of Death and Delusion: A Freudian Analysis of Mortal Terror (2004), The Madness and Perversion of Yukio Mishima (2004), and Nihon No Kyouki (Japanese Madness, 2007). Recent works include essays in The Princess Bride and Philosophy (2016), David Bowie and Philosophy (2016), and the forthcoming anthology Mind over Matter.
Heather Salazar
is a Professor of Philosophy at Western New England University where she teaches East-West philosophy, ethics, and philosophy of mind. She has been a practicing yogi for over twenty years and has traveled across both India and Bali to study yoga (ytt-200). She founded Sweet Flow Yoga in Northampton, Massachusetts, which focuses on vinyasa yoga, community involvement, and yogic philosophy. Salazar’s publications include The Philosophy of Spirituality (editor and contributor 2018), and Philosophy of Mind (editor and contributor 2019), and Creating a Shared Morality (2021).
Eric Yang
is an Associate Professor of philosophy at Santa Clara University. He has published several articles and book chapters in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, and value theory. With Stephen T. Davis, he is a co-author of An Introduction to Christian Philosophical Theology: Faith Seeking Understanding (Zondervan 2020).