Welcome! I am a critical theorist and historian of philosophy. I am broadly interested in the evolution of critical philosophy and practices of philosophical critique since Kant's Copernican turn. I enjoy teaching and writing about how philosophy "works" (...when it works) to sponsor and model the virtues of a critical attitude for readers. My published work has explored Theodor Adorno's genealogical method, his conception of hope, Samuel Beckett's drama and fiction, Jürgen Habermas's theory of the public sphere, Quobna Ottobah Cugoano's abolitionist providentialism, as well as topics in political theology and philosophy of religion.
I am expanding several shorter papers into articles currently (please feel free to contact me about any of these). Two focus on questions of the form of philosophical critique: how should philosophy be written to occasion practically-transformative perspective shifts in readers? One of these articles responds to Amy Allen's psychoanalytic model of critique, and the other asks why Dialectic of Enlightenment uses a frightening (and hyperbolic) necessitarian philosophy of history to change readers' intuitive understanding of the present.
A different article presents a conception of Adorno's practice of critical theory. I argue that (a) Adorno cannot offer a program of interdisciplinary social research that rivals those like Habermas's or Honneth's, but that (b) Adorno's critical theory is better conceived as an experimental craft practice oriented towards improving our practical knowledge of, and skills at, the art of criticism. This allows us to make legible how Adorno's practice of critical theory can be carried out by inheritors without losing its specific difference or hermetically retreating into exegesis of the master.
I am also working on a paper about the concept of life in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. The goal of the article is to show how the correct interpretation of this concept makes Hegel's account of "the life and death struggle" not, as it first appears in the "Self-Consciousness" chapter, a non-sequitur of numbing grossness.
In the longer term, I hope to work on the idea of a philosophical genre, by which I mean the aesthetic form of a work of philosophy. The Phenomenology of Spirit, for example, is often presented as a Bildungsroman; Kierkegaard conceives of his Philosophical Crumbs as a comedy. I am interested in showing that all works of philosophy, implicitly or explicitly, participate in generic conventions which shape the meaning of their propositional content. When stated, this seems boringly obvious. Yet, reflection on the generic status of philosophical writing seems to me to have very little bearing on how philosophers tend to read and write. I believe that sustained inquiry into the idea of a philosophical genre and a study of the characteristics of different philosophical genres would be salutary.
I live between Philadelphia and Poughkeepsie with my spouse, two cats, and dog. When I'm not doing philosophy, I enjoy riding my bike, cooking and bartending, watching Top Chef, and reading fiction.
I am expanding several shorter papers into articles currently (please feel free to contact me about any of these). Two focus on questions of the form of philosophical critique: how should philosophy be written to occasion practically-transformative perspective shifts in readers? One of these articles responds to Amy Allen's psychoanalytic model of critique, and the other asks why Dialectic of Enlightenment uses a frightening (and hyperbolic) necessitarian philosophy of history to change readers' intuitive understanding of the present.
A different article presents a conception of Adorno's practice of critical theory. I argue that (a) Adorno cannot offer a program of interdisciplinary social research that rivals those like Habermas's or Honneth's, but that (b) Adorno's critical theory is better conceived as an experimental craft practice oriented towards improving our practical knowledge of, and skills at, the art of criticism. This allows us to make legible how Adorno's practice of critical theory can be carried out by inheritors without losing its specific difference or hermetically retreating into exegesis of the master.
I am also working on a paper about the concept of life in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. The goal of the article is to show how the correct interpretation of this concept makes Hegel's account of "the life and death struggle" not, as it first appears in the "Self-Consciousness" chapter, a non-sequitur of numbing grossness.
In the longer term, I hope to work on the idea of a philosophical genre, by which I mean the aesthetic form of a work of philosophy. The Phenomenology of Spirit, for example, is often presented as a Bildungsroman; Kierkegaard conceives of his Philosophical Crumbs as a comedy. I am interested in showing that all works of philosophy, implicitly or explicitly, participate in generic conventions which shape the meaning of their propositional content. When stated, this seems boringly obvious. Yet, reflection on the generic status of philosophical writing seems to me to have very little bearing on how philosophers tend to read and write. I believe that sustained inquiry into the idea of a philosophical genre and a study of the characteristics of different philosophical genres would be salutary.
I live between Philadelphia and Poughkeepsie with my spouse, two cats, and dog. When I'm not doing philosophy, I enjoy riding my bike, cooking and bartending, watching Top Chef, and reading fiction.