I am a Visiting Assistant Professor of philosophy at Central Connecticut State University for the 2024-2025 AY. I was awarded my PhD in philosophy from the University of Oregon in 2024. I received BAs in philosophy and English literature and an MA in English from California State University, Stanislaus. I have worked as a lecturer at Merced College’s English department, California State University Stanislaus’ philosophy department, University of California Merced’s Merritt Writing program, Quinnipiac University’s First-Year Experience program, and Fairfield University’s philosophy department as well as their Core Writing program.
I love philosophy, and think it is one of the most meaningful ways to spend the time we have in this world. I discuss my professional experiences below, but I sincerely believe in the philosophical life beyond its academic and professional expressions. I think that philosophy makes us deeper, if not necessarily better or good. I think of philosophy expansively, but I think its history has to be taken up seriously. This means reading Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and others very carefully. My path through philosophy is guided by disgust and horror at the history of empty pain and suffering in history by the living, and I typically seek out thinkers of oppression and liberation that try to grapple with the violence of history. Texts written by women, Black people, disabled people, poor people, imprisoned people, indigenous people, and people concerned with the treatment of animals are important in this regard.
I’ve been trained extensively in the tradition of Continental philosophy, and I work in the areas of Critical Philosophy of Race and Latin American Philosophy with emphasis on colonialism and liberation. I consider myself a pluralist when it comes to philosophy, and I love reading broadly in order to continue having conversations with my friends in American Pragmatism, epistemology, Critical Theory, and Ancient Greek philosophy.
I am trained in English literature, and my exams were on California and “Multicultural” American literature. I am trained in reading and translating Middle English, though I’ve likely forgotten it by now. I have a deep love for literature, especially Fyodor Dostoevsky and Cormac McCarthy.
My dissertation worked with philosophers in Black Studies, Decolonial Feminism, and early modern philosophy to argue for thinking of liberation in terms of worlds instead of particular “subjects” of liberation. I came to work on worlds after revisiting the work of Maria Lugones for a paper on Walter Benjamin I was working on, and I was struck by the ways we could think about colonialism and its history from the point of view of worlds instead of, or in addition to, the vantage point of particular subjectivities.
I have given a lot of time to labor and community organizing since 2017, and in the labor union GTFF, AFT local 3544, I have served as department steward, grievances officer, political education officer, chair of the BIPOC caucus, member of the survivor support caucus, I have organized contract campaigns, and written contract language for our collective bargaining agreement. I’ve also worked with community groups, including community labor coalitions.
I like to use this website to blog and otherwise host whatever I need to on the internet. Feel free to send me an email for whatever reason, as I’m always happy to chat about most anything.