University of Oregon
Department of Philosophy
PhD
Denver, Colorado, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Continental Philosophy
  • Notes on Contributors
    In Nicolae Morar, Thomas Nail & Daniel Warren Smith (eds.), Between Deleuze and Foucault, Edinburgh University. pp. 294-298. 2016.
  • Index
    In Nicolae Morar, Thomas Nail & Daniel Warren Smith (eds.), Between Deleuze and Foucault, Edinburgh University. pp. 299-304. 2016.
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    Gilles Deleuze and Metaphysics
    with Arnauld Villani, Alberto Anelli, Rocco Gangle, Sjoerd van Tuinen, Joshua Ramey, Daniel Whistler, Adrian Switzer, Gregory Kalyniuk, and Mary Beth Mader
    Lexington 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
  •  3
    Introduction: Between Deleuze and Foucault
    In Nicolae Morar, Thomas Nail & Daniel Warren Smith (eds.), Between Deleuze and Foucault, Edinburgh University. pp. 1-8. 2016.
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    15. Biopower and Control
    In Nicolae Morar, Thomas Nail & Daniel Warren Smith (eds.), Between Deleuze and Foucault, Edinburgh University. pp. 247-263. 2016.
  •  3
    Theory of the Earth
    Stanford 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
  •  6
    Between Deleuze and Foucault (edited book)
    with Nicolae Morar and Daniel Warren Smith
    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
  •  10
    Chapter 2 The Movement of Time
    In Robert W. Luzecky & Daniel W. Smith (eds.), Deleuze and Time, Edinburgh University Press. pp. 27-44. 2023.
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    Lucretius I: an ontology of motion
    Edinburgh University Press. 2018.
    The Most Original and Shocking Interpretation of Lucretius in the Last Forty Years, After centuries of abuse by modern atomists and mechanistic materialists, Thomas Nail argues that it is now time to return to De Rerum Natura from the perspective of a new materialism. Nail shows that some of the most important contributions of Lucretius' poem have been completely overlooked or misunderstood. He reinterprets this classical text as an absolutely contemporary one defined by motion and gives us a ge…Read more
  •  20
    We Have Always Been Planetary
    Environmental 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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    Chapter 2 No Gods! No Masters!: From Ontological to Political Anarchism
    In Chantelle Gray Van Heerden & Aragorn Eloff (eds.), Deleuze and Anarchism, Edinburgh University Press. pp. 31-46. 2019.
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    Theory of the Object
    Edinburgh University Press. 2021.
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    Grenzen in Bewegung
    Zeitschrift für Praktische Philosophie 8 (1). 2021.
    Zusammenfassung: Dieser Beitrag schlägt einen neuen, bewegungsorientierten grenztheoretischen Ansatz vor. Gegen politikphilosophische Konzeptionen, die Grenzen als statisch und unpassierbar fassen, wird unter Verweis auf historische und empirische Studien gezeigt, dass und inwiefern Grenzen dehnbar, fluktuierend und beweglich sind. Auf dieser Grundlage wird im folgenden Abschnitt argumentiert, dass sich dynamische Prozesse der Grenzziehung am angemessensten in Sinne von Zirkulation begreifen las…Read more
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    Philosophy in the Time of COVID
    Philosophy 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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    In a world of rising income inequality, right-wing nationalisms, and global climate change, people are again looking to Karl Marx for answers. This book offers readers a new perspective on several major ideas in Marx's work. It argues that Marx, contrary to convention, did not think history was deterministic or that reality could be reduced to classical materialism. Marx was not an anthropocentric humanist nor did he have a labor theory of value. This book is written to help those returning to M…Read more
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    The Figure of the Migrant
    Stanford 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
  •  25
    Black Hole Materialism
    with Christopher Neil Gamble
    Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge 36. 2020.
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    What is new materialism?
    with Christopher N. Gamble and Joshua S. Hanan
    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...
  •  6
    Theory of the Image
    Oup Usa. 2019.
    Theory of the Image offers a new and systematic philosophy of art and aesthetics from the perspective of movement.
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    The Nomadic Proletariat
    Philosophy 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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    Being and Motion
    Oup 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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    Violence at the Borders
    Radical 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