Travis Langley - 15 Jan

On a Monday, after extensively researching literary agents, I sent six of them my query for the book that would become Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight. on Twitter, where he freely shares valuable publishing advice.

Michael Crichton, MD, wrote and directed the 1973 motion picture Westworld, which brought to life peoples worries about technology gone wrong against a backdrop of the Old West. We owe him a great debt for that story among many others. Between it and Jurassic Park, maybe we also owe a debt to whichever amusement parks frightened him at an early age. Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy, and company have given us a thought-provoking television adaptation that explores 21st century worries about technological advancements related to artificial intelligence and, oddly enough, our hopes for what the human race might become.

Because I met most of our contributing writers through conventions, I thank the organizers who work hard to put the cons together. Among them are those at San Diego Comic-Con International (Eddie Ibrahim, Gary Sassaman, Cathy Dalton, Sue Lord, Adam Neese, Amy Ramirez, Chris Sturhann), the Comics Arts Conference (Peter Coogan, Randy Duncan, Kate McClancy), and many Wizard World conventions (Ryan Ball, Kate Gloss, Christopher Jansen, Jerry Milani, Peter Katz). Panelists who joined me and Westworld Psychology contributors Martin Lloyd and Jenna Busch to discuss The Science of Westworld: Violent Insights at San Diego and WonderCon helped me think through important issues regarding the hosts and their humanity: Fon Davis, Steven Huff, Allen Pan, Sarah Petkus, and MythBuster Tamara Robertson.

Henderson State University provides great support for this work. Our administratorsPresident Glendell Jones, Provost Steve Adkison, Dean Angela Boswellencourage creative ways of teaching. Library director Lea Ann Alexander and her staff stock the shelves with unusual resources as I make one strange request after another. David Bateman, Lecia Franklin, Carolyn Hatley, Ermatine Johnson, and Salina Smith help me and my students go where we need to go. Latrena Beasley, Renee Davis, Sandra D. Johnson, and many more staff members make sure other essentials get done. Our faculty writers group (Jennifer Dawes, Anji Boswell, Matthew Bowman, Brian George, Nydia Jeffers, David Sesser, Michael Taylor, and A.I. expert Al Valbuena) reviewed portions of this manuscript.

Getting the support of a publicist whos as helpful, attentive, and fun as Blanca Oliviery is a blessing, much less having a whole team of publicists who assist in various ways. She, Ardi Alspach, Sari Lampert, and Lauren Tambini do so much to help me and to promote these projects. Michael Cea and the production team make us look good. Big thanks to editor Kate Zimmermann. My original editor, Connie Santisteban, continues to help as consultant and friend. Connie returned for this one as copyeditor, making her literally part of the team once more, and so we welcome her back. Co-editor Wind Goodfriend brings expertise, knowledge, insight, and wit. Having her on board has been a world of help to me.

For serving as our sounding boards, founts of knowledge, devils advocates, accomplices, and partners, our writers thank Caylnn Adams, Lynda and Bill Erickson, Jeffrey Henderson, Jimmy Hernandez, Jim and Kate Lloyd, Paul Madariaga, Eli Mastin, Dustin McGinnis, Linda Jordan, and Amanda Wesselmann. Much appreciation goes to my mom Lynda Langley and everyone else who shot our author photos. Eric Bailey and Chris Murrin helped me confirm quote sources. Legion of Leia founder and SyFy writer Jenna Busch is a valuable editorial assistant. Kieran Dickson, Danny Fingeroth, Katrina Hill, Grant Imahara, Jonathan Maberry, Alex Langley, Nicholas Langley, Marc Nadel, Ed ONeal, Matt Smith, and Michael Uslan deserve mention for a wide range of reasons. And no words are strong enough to express my affection, adoration, and appreciation for Rebecca Manning Langley.

I started writing book chapters about psychology and popular culture when I was a graduate student at Purdue University. I did it both because I was desperate for money and because this kind of writing was infinitely more fun than the drudgery of writing empirical journal articles. Plus, people would actually want to read them. Thus, Id like to thank my faculty advisors at Purdue and thank the administration and fellow faculty at my current institution, Buena Vista University, for continuing to allow me to spend time in this way.

I also need to acknowledge and thank my husband Shawn for introducing me to Westworld in the first place (starting with the movie) and for patiently allowing me to sit in front of our only television for hours and hours while I took detailed notes over every episode. He happens to be a physicist, computer scientist, and Dean of Science at our university, so I hope he was pleased to share an interest in this volume and topic, in particular.

Finally, my deep and sincere thanks to Travis Langley for continuing to invite me to be part of his book series. As I have told him many times, being a small part of these books is the most fun writing I have done over my entire career, and I often marvel at how lucky I am to be able to list volumes such as this one on my rsum.