Over the last twenty-one years of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, we have lost key members of the JARS family. In 2005, one of our cofounders—the man with the vision to create this journal—Bill Bradford, passed away. This was followed by the deaths of original Advisory Board members Larry J. Sechrest in 2008 and John Hospers in 2011. David Mayer, who joined the Board of Advisors in 2012, died in 2019. And in June 2021, we were greatly saddened to learn that Steven Horwitz, another Advisory Board member from the class of 2012, lost his battle with multiple myeloma.
It is in Steve’s memory that we will dedicate the forthcoming December 2021 issue of JARS, published by Pennsylvania State University Press.
But dedications of this sort require rededications to our mission—as we continue to be the only nonpartisan, biannual, interdisciplinary university-press published, double-blind peer-reviewed scholarly periodical devoted to the critical examination of Ayn Rand and her times. To that end, we are proud to announce the addition of four new Advisory Board members and one new Editorial Board member (and fuller bios for these folks will follow in our December 2021 issue):
- Laurence I. Gould is Professor of Physics, Emeritus, University of Hartford. He served as Past Chair (2004) of the New England Section of the American Physical Society and is (for many years) Chairman of the Executive Board of the International Symmetry Association. He earned his Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in physics from Temple University and his B.S. in physics from Carnegie-Mellon University. He has published and spoken extensively across the disciplines. He was also among those who participated in Ayn Rand’s epistemology workshops, which were published in edited form in the second, expanded edition of Rand’s Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (1990).
- Kirsti Minsaas received her Doctor of Arts in English Literature from the University of Oslo, Norway, where she was also a senior lecturer on the subject. In addition to works on Shakespeare and Aristotle’s Poetics, she has published several articles on Ayn Rand’s fiction and aesthetic theory—including five essays in JARS. Her contributions to Rand literary criticism have also been featured in The Literary Art of Ayn Rand (2005) and in Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”: A Philosophical and Literary Companion (2007).
- Aeon J. Skoble is Professor of Philosophy and co-coordinator of the program in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Bridgewater State University. He is the author of Deleting the State: An Argument about Government (2008) and The Essential Robert Nozick (2020). A frequent lecturer for the Institute for Humane Studies, the Cato Institute, and the Foundation for Economic Education, and a Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute, he has also written widely on the intersection of philosophy and popular culture, co-editing the best-selling The Simpsons and Philosophy (2000) and three other books on film and television.
- Edward W. Younkins is Professor of Accountancy and Business Administration and executive director of the Institute for the Study of Capitalism and Morality at Wheeling University. He is the founding director of the university’s undergraduate program in political and economic philosophy and its master’s programs in business and accountancy. A frequent contributor to JARS, he has written or edited eleven books including his trilogy of freedom and flourishing. His most recent book is Exploring “Atlas Shrugged”: Ayn Rand’s Magnum Opus (2021).
We are also pleased to announce that Roger E. Bissell, another prolific contributor to JARS since its debut in 1999, has become an Associate Editor. Roger is an independent scholar living in Antioch, Tennessee. A research associate with the Molinari Institute, he has edited no fewer than ten books and is the author of more than three dozen scholarly essays in philosophy and psychology and four books, including How the Martians Discovered Algebra: Explorations in Induction and the Philosophy of Mathematics (2014) and What’s in Your File Folder? Essays on the Nature and Logic of Propositions (2019). He is also the coeditor, with Chris Matthew Sciabarra (me!) and Edward W. Younkins, of The Dialectics of Liberty: Exploring the Context of Human Freedom. A lifelong professional musician, he has an M.A. in music performance and literature (University of Iowa) and a B.S. in music theory and composition (Iowa State University).
In welcoming these individuals, we remain profoundly grateful to all of our editorial and advisory board members for their continued support, which is integral to our ongoing intellectual journey.
Stay tuned for what promises to be a blockbuster December 2021 issue of JARS!
