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687Plato's Phaedrus after Descartes' Passions: Reviving Reason's Political ForceLo Sguardo. Rivista di Filosofia 27 75-93. 2018.For this special issue, dedicated to the historical break in what one might call ‘the politics of feeling’ between ancient ‘passions’ (in the ‘soul’) and modern ‘emotions’ (in the ‘mind’), I will suggest that the pivotal difference might be located instead between ancient and modern conceptions of the passions. Through new interpretations of two exemplars of these conceptions, Plato’s Phaedrus and Descartes’ Passions of the Soul, I will suggest that our politics today need to return to what I te…Read more
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228Ender-Shiva: Lord of the DanceIn D. E. Wittkower & Lucinda Rush (eds.), Ender's Game and Philosophy: Genocide is Child's Play, . pp. 75-84. 2013.[First paragraph]: Believe it or not, it’s no exaggeration to say that Ender’s Game has been the most transformative book of my life. In fact, when I first read it, at the age of fifteen, it almost single-handedly initiated a crisis of faith in me that ended up lasting for eight long years. The reason that it was able to do so is that it is positively full of important philosophical ideas (a fact attested to by the very existence of this volume and its many essays). It should come as no surpr…Read more
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1012Afro-Latin Dance as Reconstructive Gestural Discourse: The Figuration Philosophy of Dance on SalsaResearch in Dance Education 22 1-15. 2020.The Afro-Latin dance known as ‘salsa’ is a fusion of multiple dances from West Africa, Muslim Spain, enslaved communities in the Caribbean, and the United States. In part due to its global origins, salsa was pivotal in the development of the Figuration philosophy of dance, and for ‘dancing with,’ the theoretical method for social justice derived therefrom. In the present article, I apply the completed theory Figuration exclusively to salsa for the first time, after situating the latter in the da…Read more
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218Southern Black Women's Canebrake Gardens: Responding to Taylor's Call for Aesthetic ReconstructionDebates in Aesthetics 15 (2). 2020.In this response, I suggest that Black southern women in the U.S. have always been central to the “reconstruction” that Taylor identifies as a central theme of Black aesthetics. Building on his allusions to Alice Walker and Jean Toomer, I explore Walker’s tearful response (in In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983) to Toomer’s Cane (2011). Walker identifies their mothers’ and grandmothers’ informal arts of storytelling and gardening as the hidden roots of both her and Toomer’s w…Read more
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988Judith Butler and a Pedagogy of Dancing ResilienceJournal of Aesthetic Education 54 (3): 1-16. 2020.This essay is part of a larger project in which I construct a new, historically-informed, social justice-centered philosophy of dance, centered on four central phenomenological constructs, or “Moves.” This essay in particular is about the fourth Move, “resilience.” More specifically, I explore how Judith Butler engages with the etymological aspects of this word, suggesting that resilience involves a productive form of madness and a healthy form of compulsion, respectively. I then conclude by sho…Read more
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1099Newton contra Alt-right Nietzsche: Dionysus as Androgynous Black PantherThe Pluralist 15 (2): 110-128. 2020.In this article, I channel the autobiography of Black Panther cofounder Huey P. Newton, entitled Revolutionary Suicide, against the misogyny of the alt-right movement today. Both Newton and the alt-right have been powerfully influenced by Nietzsche, but one way of grasping the central difference between them is by comparing their conceptions of Dionysus. While the alt-right sticks closer to Nietzsche’s conception, which minimizes the god’s androgyny, Newton’s thought resonates with that androgyn…Read more
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246Dancing-With: A Method for Poetic Social JusticeIn Rebecca L. Farinas, Craig Hanks, Julie C. Van Camp & Aili Bresnahan (eds.), Dance and Philosophy, Bloomsbury. 2021.This chapter outlines a new theoretical method, which I call “dancing-with,” emerging from the process of writing my dissertation and the book manuscript that followed it. Defined formally, a given theorist X can be said to “dance-with” with a second theorist Y insofar as X “choreographs” an interpretation of Y which is both true to Y and Y’s historical communities, and also meaningful and actionable (i.e. facilitating social justice) for X and X’s historical communities. In this pursuit, the …Read more
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329A Self-Critical Phenomenology of Criticism (review)Dance Chronicle 37 122-128. 2014.Noel Carroll, a central figure in analytic (Anglo-American) philosophy of art, and spouse of renowned dance scholar Sally Banes (who co-authored several of these essays), offers us something remarkable in his new book—namely, a collection of thirty years of his theoretical essays and dance reviews. Carroll wrote some of the pieces while he was a graduate student at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and there have been some dramatic changes since then in both the art world and Carroll’s philos…Read more
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246Du Bois, Foucault, and Self-Torsion: Criterion of Imprisoned ArtIn Joshua M. Hall & Sarah Tyson (eds.), Philosophy Imprisoned: The Love of Wisdom in the Age of Mass Incarceration, . pp. 105-124. 2014.[First paragraphs: This essay takes its practical orientation from my experiences as a member of a philosophy reading group on death row at Riverbend Maximum Security Penitentiary in Nashville, Tennessee. Its theoretical orientation comes from W. E. B. Du Bois’ lecture-turned-essay, “Criteria of Negro Art,” which argues that the realm of aesthetics is vitally important in the war against racial discrimination in the United States. And since, according to Michele Alexander’s critically-acclai…Read more
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33Descartes' Demon--More Powerful and Just than God?In Benjamin W. McCraw & Robert Arp (eds.), Philosophical Approaches to the Devil, Routledge. pp. 106-118. 2015.The demon is, in the thinker,s words, "supremely powerful and clever", and it is only the combination of these two traits with the demon's incessant deception that empowers Descartes to stage the radical doubt that will terminate in his attempted proofs of God and the material world. The reason the demon is necessary is that the thinker cannot prove that it would be wrong for God to allow us to be deceived occasionally. Thus, Descartes needed, methodologically and rhetorically, something more th…Read more
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244Student Protests of University Investments: Harvard and Vanderbilt’s African Land-GrabsIn Fritz Allhoff, Alex Sager & Anand Vaidya (eds.), Business in Ethical Focus, 2nd Ed.. pp. 180-184. 2015.[First paragraph]: On Wednesday, June 8, 2011, UK’s The Guardian reported that numerous US universities including Harvard and Vanderbilt were invested in companies that were buying large tracts of African farmland and kicking off the indigenous farmers in order for their employees (mostly non-Africans) to grow cash crops to sell to Europe.1 Harms associated with this land-grabbing include, in addition to the evictions themselves, corruption among African governments and among absentee African la…Read more
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395Figuration: A Philosophy of DanceDissertation, Vanderbilt University. 2012.Dance receives relatively little attention in the history of philosophy. My strategy for connecting that history to dance consists in tracing a genealogy of its dance-relevant moments. In preparation, I perform a phenomenological analysis of my own eighteen years of dance experience, in order to generate a small cluster of central concepts or “Moves” for elucidating dance. At this genealogical-phenomenological intersection, I find what I term “positure” most helpfully treated in Plato, Aristotle…Read more
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248Tyrannized Childhood of the Liberator-Philosopher: J. S. Mill and Poetry as Second ChildhoodIn Brock Bahler & David Kennedy (eds.), Philosophy of Childhood Today: Exploring the Boundaries, Lexington Books. pp. 117-132. 2016.In this chapter, I will explore the intersection of philosophy and childhood through the intriguing case study of J. S. Mill, who was almost completely denied a childhood—in the nineteenth-century sense of a qualitatively distinct period inclusive of greater play, imaginative freedom, flexibility, and education. For his part, Mill’s lack of such a childhood was the direct result of his father, James Mill (economic theorist and early proponent of Utilitarianism), who in a letter to Jeremy Bentha…Read more
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190Twixt Mages and Monsters: Arendt on the Dark Art of ForgivenessIn Court D. Lewis (ed.), The Philosophy of Forgiveness - Volume II: New Dimensions of Forgiveness, Vernon Press. pp. 215-240. 2016.In this chapter, I will offer a strategic new interpretation of Hannah Arendt's conception of forgiveness. In brief, I propose understanding Arendt as suggesting—not that evil is objectively banal, or a mere failure of imagination—but instead that it is maximally forgiveness-facilitating to understand the seemingly unforgivable as merely a failure of imagination. In other words, we must so expand our imaginative powers (what Arendt terms “enlarged mentality”) by creatively imagining others as…Read more
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377Toward a New Conception of Socially-Just PeaceIn Fuat Gursozlu (ed.), Peace, Culture, and Violence, Brill. pp. 248-272. 2018.In this chapter, I approach the subject of peace by way of Andrew Fiala’s pioneering, synthetic work on “practical pacifism.” One of Fiala’s articles on the subject of peace is entitled “Radical Forgiveness and Human Justice”—and if one were to replace “Radical Forgiveness” with “Peace,” this would be a fair title for my chapter. In fact, Fiala himself explicitly makes a connection in the article between radical forgiveness and peace. Also in support of my project, Fiala’s article names four of …Read more
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270Empowering Poetic Defiance: Baudelaire, Kant, and Poetic Agency in the ClassroomIn Frank Jacob, Shannon Kincaid & Amy E. Traver (eds.), Poetry across the Curriculum, . pp. 141-157. 2018.Many strategies for incorporating poetry into non-poetry classes, especially outside of English and associated disciplines, appear to make poetry subservient and secondary in relation to the prose content of the course. The poet under consideration becomes a kind of involuntary servant to one or more prose authors, forced to “speak only when spoken to,” and effectively prevented from challenging the ideas of the course’s prose writers, and thereby the instructor. Fortunately, this is not the o…Read more
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370Revalorized Black Embodiment: Dancing with FanonJournal of Black Studies 43 (3): 274-288. 2012.This article explores Fanon's thought on dance, beginning with his explicit treatment of it in Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth. It then broadens to consider his theorization of Black embodiment in racist and colonized societies, considering how these analyses can be reformulated as a phenomenology of dance. This will suggest possibilities for fruitful encounters between the two domains in which (a) dance can be valorized while (b) opening up sites of resignification and res…Read more
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318Slanted Truths: The Gay Science as Nietzsche's Ars PoeticaEvental Aesthetics 5 (1): 98-117. 2016.This essay derives its focus on poetry from the subtitle of Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft: “la gaya scienza.” Nietzsche appropriated this phrase from the phrase “gai saber” used by the Provençal knight-poets (or troubadours) of the eleventh through thirteenth centuries — the first lyric poets of the European languages — to designate their Ars Poetica or “art of poetry.” I will begin with an exploration of Nietzsche’s treatment of poets and poetry as a subject matter, closely analyzing his six aphor…Read more
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580Core Aspects of Dance: Schiller and Dewey on GraceDance Chronicle 40 (1): 74-98. 2013.Part of a larger project of constructing a new, historically informed philosophy of dance, built on four phenomenological constructs that I call “Moves,” this essay concerns the third Move, “grace.” The etymology of the word “grace” reveals the entwined meanings of pleasing quality and authoritative power, which may be combined as “beautiful force.” I examine the treatments of grace in German philosopher Friedrich Schiller, who understands it as playful, naive transformation of matter; and in Am…Read more
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573Core Aspects of Dance: Condillac and Mead on GestureDance Chronicle 36 (1): 352-371. 2017.This essay—part of a larger project of constructing a new, historically informed philosophy of dance, built on four phenomenological constructs that I call “Moves”—concerns the second Move, “gesture,” the etymology of which reveals its close connection to the Greek word “metaphor.” More specifically, I examine the treatments of gesture by the philosophers George Herbert Mead and Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, both of whom view it as the foundation of language. I conclude by showing how gesture can…Read more
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254The Necessary Pain of Moral Imagination: Lonely Delegation in Richard Wright's White Man, Listen! and HaikuEvental Aesthetics 1 (7): 63-89. 2018.Richard Wright gave a series of lectures in Europe from 1950 to 1956, collected in the following year in the volume, White Man, Listen! One dominant theme in all four essays is that expanding the moral imagination is centrally important in repairing our racism-benighted globe. What makes Wright’s version of this claim unique is his forthright admission that expanding the moral imagination necessarily involves pain and suffering. The best place to hear Wright in regard to the necessary pain of ex…Read more
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191Nancy and Neruda: Poetry Thinking LoveContemporary Aesthetics 12. 2014.My intention in this paper is to respond to Jean-Luc Nancy’s claim that poetry, along with philosophy, is essentially incapable of what Nancy describes as "thinking love." To do so, I will first try to come to an understanding of Nancy’s thinking regarding love and then of poetry as presented in his essay "Shattered Love." Having thus prepared the way, I will then respond, via Pablo Neruda’s poem "Oda al Limón," to Nancy’s understanding of poetry vis-à-vis "Shattered Love." This response, in act…Read more
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14Philosophy Imprisoned: The Love of Wisdom in the Age of Mass IncarcerationLexington Books. 2014.Editors Sarah Tyson and Joshua M. Hall convene an international group of philosophical thinkers—from both inside and outside prison walls—who draw on a variety of historical figures and critical perspectives to think about prisons in our new historical era.
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369Imaginatively Grounded Figures: Dancing with CastoriadisPhaenEx 13 (1): 86-115. 2019.This paper argues that twentieth-century philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis’ innovative concept of imagination is closely related to his treatments of dance. More specifically, it revolves around his concept of “figure,” which thereby suggests a productive partnership with my own philosophy of dance, which I call “Figuration.” The first and second sections below review the interpretations of Castoriadis’ imagination in the two book manuscripts on him in English, Jeff Klooger’s Psyche, Society Aut…Read more
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373Sociohistorical Self-Choreography: A Second Dance with CastoriadisCulture and Dialogue 7 (1): 87-104. 2019.Twentieth-century Greco-French philosopher, economist, psychoanalyst and activist Cornelius Castoriadis offers a creative new conception of imagination that is uniquely promising for social justice. Though it has been argued that this conception has one fatal flaw, the latter has recently been resolved through a creative dialogue with dance. The present article fleshes out this philosophical-dancing dialogue further, revealing a deeper layer of creative dialogue therein, namely between Castoriad…Read more
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573Core Aspects of Dance: Aristotle on PositureJournal of Aesthetic Education 53 (1): 1-16. 2019.[First paragraph]: This article is part of a larger project in which I suggest a historically informed philosophy of dance, called “figuration,” consisting of new interpretations of canonical philosophers. Figuration consists of two major parts, comprising (a) four basic concepts, or “moves”—namely, “positure,” “gesture,” “grace,” and “resilience”—and (b) seven types, or “families” of dance—namely, “concert,” “folk,” “societal,” “agonistic,” “animal,” “astronomical,” and “discursive.” This artic…Read more
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488Reattaching Shadows: Dancing with SchopenhauerPhaenEx 9 (1): 1. 2014.The structure of my investigation is as follows. I will begin with Schopenhauer’s very brief explicit mention of dance, and then try to understand the exclusion of dance from his extended discussion of the individual arts. Toward this latter end I will then turn to Francis Sparshott essay, which situates Schopenhauer’s thought in terms of Plato’s privileging of dance (in the Laws) as the consummate participatory art, and which observes that Schopenhauer’s dance is that of Shiva, lord of death. I…Read more
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384American Indian Thought: Philosophical Essays ed. by Anne Waters (review)Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 54 (2): 280-293. 2018.American Indian Thought is a contemporary collection of twenty-two essays written by Indigenous persons with Western philosophical training, all attempting to formulate, and/or contribute to a sub-discipline of, a Native American Philosophy. The contributors come from diverse tribal, educational, philosophical, methodological, etc., backgrounds, and there is some tension among aspects of the collection, but what is more striking is the harmony and the singularity of the collection’s intent. Part…Read more
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1084Philosophy of Dance and DisabilityPhilosophy Compass 13 (12). 2018.The emerging field of the philosophy of dance, as suggested by Aili Bresnahan, increasingly recognizes the problem that (especially pre‐modern) dance has historically focused on bodily perfection, which privileges abled bodies as those that can best make and perform dance as art. One might expect that the philosophy of dance, given the critical and analytical powers of philosophy, might be helpful in illuminating and suggesting ameliorations for this tendency in dance. But this is particularly a…Read more
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333Bodily-Social Copresence Androgyny: Rehabilitating a Progressive StrategyInternational Journal of Applied Philosophy 32 (1). 2018.Historically, the concept of androgyny has been as problematic as it has been appealing to Western progressives. The appeal clearly includes, inter alia, the opportunity to abandon or ameliorate certain identities. As for the problematic dimension, the central problem seems to be the reduction of otherness to the norms of straight white middle/upper-class Western cismen, particularly because of the consequent worsening of actual others’ marginalization and exclusion from social institutions. Des…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
Value Theory |
Philosophical Traditions |
History of Western Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Value Theory |
Philosophical Traditions |