John Durham Peters is A. Craig Baird Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and Professor of International Studies at the University of Iowa. He has published widely on media history and theory, and in adjoining fields such as film studies, music, philosophy, religious studies, and social theory. He is the author of Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication (1999), Courting the Abyss: Free Speech and the Liberal Tradition (2005), and The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media (all from the University of Chicago Press. In 2013-2014 he was the inaugural Helsingin Sanomat Foundation Fellow in Media Studies at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies.