I am an assistant professor in the Shyam Dev Patwardhan Department of Philosophy at the University of Oklahoma. My research focuses on the history of early modern metaphysics (c. 1500-1800) with a special emphasis on understudied philosophical genres and perspectives. I also have research interests in the philosophy of art and feminist philosophy.
My dissertation (defended in 2022) examines the metaphysical systems of Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway, two early modern women philosophers whose panpsychist, vital materialist systems – dubbed panpsychist-materialist monism – stand as attractive alternatives to some of the more familiar responses to the mind-body problems of the seventeenth century. By attending to the similarities and differences between their views in context, I expose a little-noticed tendency in seventeenth-century thought that includes such thinkers as the physician Francis Glisson and the poet John Milton. In addition to marking the historical significance of versions of panpsychist-materialist monism, I argue that such views (1) have ethical-normative implications worth attending to and (2) resonate with certain contemporary positions in the philosophy of mind.
I maintain active research and teaching interests in other understudied areas of philosophy’s history, as well as the philosophy of art, varieties of monism, and panpsychism (historical and otherwise). Other interests of mine include environmental philosophy, feminist philosophy, and disability studies.
In addition to my academic research, I have produced and hosted scholarly podcasts. I studied art as an undergraduate and have an ongoing painting and ceramic sculpture practice. And I love yoga, walking, and music (mainly post-punk/coldwave/minimal wave, classical, ambient, and experimental genres).