John David Ebert

John David Ebert (born June 26, 1968) is a cultural critic and philosopher who has made several contributions to the study of mythology and popular culture.

Ebert was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. He worked for The Joseph Campbell Foundation as an editor immediately after graduating from Arizona State University with a B.A. in English. At the Campbell Foundation, Ebert primarily wrote footnotes for several of Campbell’s posthumous writings, among them Baksheesh & Brahman, Sake & Satori and The Mythic Dimension.

After leaving the Campbell Foundation, he wrote his first book, Twilight of the Clockwork God: Conversations on Science & Spirituality at the End of an Age (Council Oak Books, 1999).

He moved to San Francisco during the year 2000, where he ran a bookstore in North Beach known as Black Oak Books for approximately four years (2000-2004). During that period he worked on a cycle of essays which were ultimately gathered up and published as a book entitled Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons: Film as the Mythology of Electronic Society (Cybereditions, 2005).

His forthcoming book is entitled Dead Celebrities, Living Icons (Praeger — Greenwood), an examination of how electric technology created the conditions for the rise of the cult of the celebrity.