Curriculum Vitae
The following is a selected list of peer-reviewed publications, reviews, and conference presentations. Each title links to the full text, where applicable.
Publications
“Arendt’s Phenomenology of Political Forgiveness”
Philosophical Forum 54 (3), 105-119. 2023.
Abstract
Forgiveness is often understood as a primarily interpersonal experience, a type of moral response to a wrongdoing that has particular effects on the personal relationship between the one wronged and the wrongdoer. However, some have also attempted to defend another kind of forgiveness, one that takes place in public and applies to a wider range of practices in a specifically political context. That such a concept of forgiveness is possible is not particularly controversial. But the way that this political forgiveness is unified—if it is unified—with personal forgiveness has not been clarified. By approaching the question phenomenologically, it becomes possible to root forgiveness, both personal and political, in the more fundamental context of the shared human world. Hannah Arendt’s analysis of forgiveness does just this. In so doing, Arendt accounts for both the role of forgiveness in private human relationships and the way in which this role is fundamentally political.
“‘No One Was As Great As Abraham’: Exemplarity and the Failure of Hermeneutical Refiguration in Fear and Trembling“
Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 28 (1), 3-27. 2023.
Abstract
In this paper I put forward a new interpretation of the “Exordium” and “Eulogy for Abraham” sections in Fear and Trembling. It reads them in tension, as mutually incompatible approaches to the biblical narrative of Abraham. I argue this tension is productive insofar as it reveals and critiques the failure of each section to respond to Abraham as a religious exemplar of faith. Drawing on the work of Paul Ricœur, I argue that this failure consists in the absence of the hermeneutical moment of refiguration, which takes up what is understood in the narrative in the lived experience of the reader. By enacting this irreconcilable contrast within his text, Silentio poses a hermeneutical critique of faith by highlighting the importance of narrative refiguration in the life of faith, that is, the lived experience of those who understand Abraham to be a religious exemplar.
“Levinas and the Political Problem of Original Peace”
Continental Philosophy Review 54 (3), 319-330. 2021.
Abstract
By prioritizing the ethical encounter with the Other over politics, Levinas appears to relegate political concerns to a secondary status. Not only does politics appear to be less important than the face-to-face, it even appears to be morally compromised. Nevertheless, Levinas insists that politics are necessary for a moral society. This paper attempts to navigate this tension between morality and politics by exploring Levinas’s account of original peace as opposed to competing accounts of original violence in Hobbes and Derrida. This original peace not only serves as a foundation of the political order, but also provides the context in which to understand Levinas’s famous account of the third. The introduction of the third party appears to problematize the self-other account and opens an aporia in the ethical relation. Far from being a necessary evil, politics instead appears as a necessary good to both remain true to the ethical imperative of the face-to-face and solve the problem introduced by the third party. It is by recognizing that the political is already implicated in the face-to-face relation that Levinas seeks to bridge the gap between peace with the Other and peace within a political society.
“Continuity and Tension in the Spatial and Temporal Horizons of Liturgy: A Response to Welcoming Finitude by Christina M. Gschwandtner”
Crossing: The INPR Journal 2, 117-121. 2021.
Abstract
A response to Gschwandtner focused on the spatial and temporal aspects of liturgical experience, especially as relates to textual tradition and interpretation.
Book Reviews
Review: James K. A. Smith, The Nicene Option: An Incarnational Phenomenology (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2021)
Journal for Continental Philosophy of Religion 4 (1), 95-96. 2022.
Review: Abed Azzam, Nietzsche Versus Paul (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015)
New Nietzsche Studies 11 (1/2), 157-158. 2022.
Selected Presentations
“A Public Without Publicness: Clarifying Arendt’s Divergence from Heidegger”
Presented at Collegium Phaenomenologicum Participants Conference
Città di Castello, Italy. 2023.
“The Breakdown of Tradition: Arendt’s Hermeneutics of Prejudice and Judgment”
Presented at North American Society for Philosophical Hermeneutics (NASPH) Annual Meeting
University of Dallas. Dallas, TX. 2022.
“The Question of World in the Phenomenology of Religious Practice”
Presented at Northeast Philosophy of Religion Colloquium (NEPRC)
Fordham University, New York, NY. 2022.
“Faith and Hermeneutical Refiguration in Fear and Trembling“
Presented at International Network in Philosophy of Religion (INPR) Seminar
Cornwall, NY. 2022.
“Isolation, Conspiracy, and the Privation of Narrative Meaning in Fear and Trembling‘s ‘Attunement'”
Presented at “Kierkegaard, Religion, and Culture” Unit, American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Meeting.
San Antonio, TX. 2021.
“Political Forgiveness in Arendt”
Presented at Clough Center for Representative Democracy Graduate Workshop.
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA. 2021.
“Finding a Place for Paul in Foucault’s Genealogy of Christian Subjectivity”
Presented at Foucault Circle Annual Meeting.
Stonehill College, Easton, MA. 2019.
“Venerable Father Abraham: Horror and Admiration in Fear and Trembling“
Presented at DePaul Philosophy Graduate Conference.
DePaul University, Chicago, IL. 2019.
“In Good Faith: Gadamer, Derrida, and the Dialogue with the Other”
Presented at Gonzaga University Graduate Student Conference.
Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. 2018.
Current Professional Service
Book Review Editor, Journal for Continental Philosophy of Religion (JCPR)
Editors-in-Chief: John Panteleimon Manoussakis, Brian Becker, Matthew Clemente
Director of Media, Guestbook Foundation
Co-directors: Richard Kearney and Sheila Gallagher