Publications

Books

1

Diseases of the Head: Essays on the Horrors of Speculative Philosophy. Punctum Books, 2020. Edited Volume.

This is a collection of essays by philosophers, artists, and writers working at the intersection of metaphysics and speculative fiction. It contains fourteen essays and an introduction. Topics considered include: human extinction, otherness and alienation, anonymity, whether horror is a genre, the relationship between speculation and Kant’s critical philosophy, the sublime.

2

Speculative Annihilationism: The Intersection of Archaeology and Extinction. Zero Books, 2019.

This monograph argues that a set of considerations in temporal ontology and a certain conception of metaphysical realism ought to motivate a particular understanding of archaeological theory and practice distinct from the post-processual, post-modernist, and cultural-historical frameworks that have tended to dominate the subject.

Articles

1

Those Who Aren't Counted, Diseases of the Head: Essays on the Horrors of Speculative Philosophy. Punctum Books, 2020: 113-62.

This chapter proposes a distinction between affliction and atrocity. I argue that an ethical position with respect to history’s horrors can be understood as a practice of refusing to permit affliction to be seen as atrocity. Then I discuss several instances of the qualification of affliction as atrocity, including the Sétif and Guelma massacre, the crucifixion of Christ, and the biblical story of the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt. I conclude by making a case that it is ethically imperative that we recollect the self’s abnegation to those who cannot be counted because they are afflicted without atrocity.

2

To Not Lose Sight of the Good: Notes on the Zapatismo Ethic, Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory, 2020.

I consider the place of moral concerns about hospitality and welcoming in the politics of the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (Zapatista Army of National Liberation, or EZLN). I argue that the EZLN’s political model exemplifies some of what is characteristic of the ideal relationship between politics, concerned with sameness and collective identities, and ethics, concerned with hospitality to those who are genuinely different.

3

On Neighborly and Preferential Love in Kierkegaard's Works of Love, Journal of Philosophy and Scripture 8, 2019: 1–20.

This paper considers the question of the possibility of the coexistence of neighborly love (love for strangers) and preferential love (love for persons because of or despite their attributes). This question has long perplexed interpreters of Kierkegaard. I make a threefold intervention into this interpretive debate. First, I aim to show that we shouldn’t privilege preferential love over neighborly love. Second, I reformulate preferential and neighborly love on a ‘topological’ model. And third, I argue that preferential love can coexist with neighborly love insofar as the latter is granted primacy over the former.

4

In Praise of Welcoming: Remarks on the Ethics of Politics, Anamnesis IV, 2019: 6–11.

I discuss the roles that welcoming and hospitality play in communal and political life, and the roles they ought to play. I also consider the relationship between ethics in its concern for hospitality to those who are different and politics in its concern for collective understanding and the solidification of group identities.

5

Reflections on the Philosophy of Stapletonism, Res Publica I, 2019.

I offer a reflection on the exercise of agency in democratic elections in which political parties are empowered to determine, in a number of ways that are not obviously democratic, the sorts of platforms for which it is possible to vote and the sorts of candidates who are able to run.

6

Reconceptualizing Species as Species-towards-Extinctions, Southwest Philosophy Review 34(2), 2018: 117–23.

I do three things. First, I consider the temporal way in which we conceptualize extinction. Second, I argue that our colloquial notion of time is in certain ways inadequate so far as said consideration goes. And third, in light of a different model of temporality better suited to thinking about extinction, I ask: what do we do now?

Reviews and Other Writing

1

Review of Explaining Evil: Four Views, ed. W. Paul Franks, Journal of Moral Philosophy 17(6), 2020: 686-9.

2

Letter to the Editor: Enough Dreaming Small, The Catalyst, 2020.

I argue that by returning to three basic questions about higher education – What should the end or aim of education be? What should its form or shape be? What is the picture of human life in which a notion of education with this end and form fits? – it might be possible to refocus relevant debates and open new pathways and opportunities to develop a more meaningful system of higher education.

3

Three simple questions to re-define higher education, LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, 2020.

4

The Lesser Evil, The Catalyst, 2020.

I contend that expedient voting for the ‘lesser evil’ in an election is not always the right thing to do, and that we should bear in mind, when voting for the lesser evil, that they are the lesser evil.