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755The Figure of the MigrantStanford University Press. 2015.This book offers a much-needed new political theory of an old phenomenon. The last decade alone has marked the highest number of migrations in recorded history. Constrained by environmental, economic, and political instability, scores of people are on the move. But other sorts of changes—from global tourism to undocumented labor—have led to the fact that to some extent, we are all becoming migrants. The migrant has become the political figure of our time. Rather than viewing migration as the exc…Read more
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283Introduction to Foucault Studies (April 2014), Special Issue on Foucault and DeleuzeFoucault Studies 17 4-10. 2014.
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203What is an Assemblage?Substance 46 (1): 21-37. 2017.The concept of assemblage plays a crucial role in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. In a 1980 interview with Catherine Clément, Deleuze describes their invention of the concept of the assemblage as the “general logic” at work in A Thousand Plateaus. However, despite its thirty years of influence on political theory, this “general logic of the assemblage” still remains obscured by the fact that Deleuze and Guattari never formalized it as a theory per se, but largely used it ad …Read more
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130Expression, Immanence and Constructivism: 'Spinozism' and Gilles DeleuzeDeleuze and Guatarri Studies 2 (2): 201-219. 2008.This paper is an attempt to explicate the relationship between Spinozist expressionism and philosophical constructivism in Deleuze's work through the concept of immanent causality. Deleuze finds in Spinoza a philosophy of immanent causality used to solve the problem of the relation between substance, attribute and mode as an expression of substance. But, when he proceeds to take up this notion of immanent causality found in Spinoza in Difference and Repetition, Deleuze instead inverts it into a …Read more
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117What is new materialism?Angelaki 24 (6): 111-134. 2019.New materialism is one of the most important emerging trends in the humanities and social sciences, but it is also one of the least understood. This is because, as a term of ongoing contest...
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79The Crossroads of Power: Michel Foucault and the US/Mexico Border WallFoucault Studies 15 110-128. 2013.This paper draws on the work of Michel Foucault in order to analyze the constellation of political strategies and power at the US/Mexico border wall. These strategies, however, are incredibly diverse and often directly antagonistic of one another. Thus, this paper argues that in order to make sense of the seemingly multiple and contradictory political strategies deployed in the operation of the US/Mexico border wall, we have to understand the coexistence and intertwinement of at least three dist…Read more
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54Violence at the BordersRadical Philosophy Review 15 (1): 241-257. 2012.This paper argues that borders and violence against migrants no longer takes place exclusively at the geographical space between two sovereign territories. Instead border violence today has become much more normalized and diffused into society itself. An entire privatized industry now capitalizes on the cycle of transporting, incarcerating, hiring, and releasing non-status migrants. Similarly, however, resistance to this violence is also shifting from the older confrontation with sovereignty and…Read more
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53A Post-Neoliberal Ecopolitics? Deleuze, Guattari, and ZapatismoPhilosophy Today 54 (2): 179-190. 2010.
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42Returning to Revolution: Deleuze, Guattari and ZapatismoEdinburgh University Press. 2012.Introduction We have to try and think a little about the meaning of revolution. This term is now so broken and worn out, and has been dragged through so many places, that it's necessary to go back to a basic, albeit elementary, definition.
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35Alain Badiou and the Sans-PapiersAngelaki 20 (4): 109-130. 2015.The rising number of non-status migrants is one of the central political issues of our time. This essay argues that if we want to understand the political and philosophical importance of this phenomenon, the contributions of Alain Badiou, his militant group L'Organisation politique, and the struggle of the sans-papiers movement in France are absolutely crucial. This is the case because, I will argue, Badiou, the OP, and the sans-papiers created a new kind of migrant justice struggle in the mid-1…Read more
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34Gilles Deleuze and MetaphysicsLexington Books. 2014.This collection examines an aspect of Gilles Deleuze’s thought that has largely been neglected; whether or not Deleuze was a metaphysician. Answering this question may reveal the problematic nature of so-called postmodernism and the critique it leveled at the first philosophy, and it may help readers to better understand philosophy’s fate
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27Theory of the EarthStanford University Press. 2021.We need a new philosophy of the earth. Geological time used to refer to slow and gradual processes, but today we are watching land sink into the sea and forests transform into deserts. We can even see the creation of new geological strata made of plastic, chicken bones, and other waste that could remain in the fossil record for millennia or longer. Crafting a philosophy of geology that rewrites natural and human history from the broader perspective of movement, Thomas Nail provides a new materia…Read more
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27Zapatismo and the Global Origins of OccupyJournal for Cultural and Religious Theory 12 (3): 20-35. 2013.
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24Philosophy in the Time of COVIDPhilosophy Today 64 (4): 889-893. 2020.The COVID world is just like it was before, only more so. Every problem that already existed is worse. What can philosophy do in such a world? I think there are at least two opportunities for philosophy today. The first is that philosophers can seize this historical moment to intervene in almost every sector of social, political, and ethical life. The second unique opportunity I think philosophers have is to create new concepts in response to new phenomena. New events call for new ways of thinki…Read more
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21We Have Always Been PlanetaryEnvironmental Philosophy 19 (2): 191-202. 2022.This essay shows how a new materialist theory of the Earth side-steps the distinction between the global and the planetary that structures Chakrabarty’s historiography. It advocates for a non-binary-generating approach to our planetary situation grounded in the philosophy of motion.
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16The politics of borders: Sovereignty, security, and the citizen after 9/11Contemporary Political Theory 19 (3): 206-209. 2020.
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14Chapter 2 The Movement of TimeIn Robert W. Luzecky & Daniel W. Smith (eds.), Deleuze and Time, Edinburgh University Press. pp. 27-44. 2023.
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13The Nomadic ProletariatPhilosophy Today 62 (4): 1207-1211. 2018.Thomas Nail’s interview with Alain Badiou focuses on the concept of the migrant, or the sans-papiers. Badiou discusses the importance of this concept in his previous work and for contemporary politics. Nail also inquires into Badiou’s involvement with a migrant-focused political organization, L’Organisation politique, as well as his eventual break with the organization.
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13Being and MotionOup Usa. 2018.More than at any other time in human history, we live in an age defined by movement and mobility; and yet, we lack a single contemporary ontology which takes this seriously as a starting point for philosophy. Being and Motion sets out to remedy this lacuna in contemporary thought by providing a historical ontology of our present: an ontology of movement.
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12The Figure of the MigrantStanford University PRess. 2015.This book offers a much-needed new political theory of an old phenomenon. The last decade alone has marked the highest number of migrations in recorded history. Constrained by environmental, economic, and political instability, scores of people are on the move. But other sorts of changes—from global tourism to undocumented labor—have led to the fact that to some extent, we are all becoming migrants. The migrant has become the political figure of our time. Rather than viewing migration as the e…Read more
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12Constructivism and the Future Anterior of Radical PoliticsAnarchist Developments in Cultural Studies 1. 2010.
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11Between Deleuze and Foucault (edited book)Edinburgh University. 2016.Deleuze and Foucault had a long, complicated and productive relationship, in which each was at various times a significant influence on the other. This collection combines 3 original essays by Deleuze and Foucault, in which they respond to each other's work, with 16 critical essays by key contemporary scholars working in the field. The result is a sustained discussion and analysis of the various dimensions of this fascinating relationship, which clarifies the implications of their philosophical …Read more
Denver, Colorado, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Continental Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Social and Political Philosophy |
Continental Philosophy |
European Philosophy |