I am a PhD candidate in Harvard’s Philosophy department. I write about ethics and the philosophy of mind in addition to the history of modern philosophy. My undergraduate degree is from Yale in Philosophy and English.

The philosophical questions that interest me most concern ordinary, everyday aspects of the human condition—places we get stuck in thinking about how to live, about what it is to face this task and what it means to manage it well. In grappling with these sorts of questions, I've gotten a lot of help from studying the history of philosophy together with the other humanities.

My dissertation interprets German and English Romanticism (1790-1850) as an essentially ethical movement by focusing on its conception of the creative imagination. The Romantics understand the creative imagination to be our power to create works of art as well as our power to want or desire something—for example, to be drawn to a career, a way of life, or a relationship with a particular person. They thus believe that our desiring is neither a projection of interest onto the world nor a perception of reasons within it, but a creative imaginative response to it. The dissertation reconstructs this conception of the imagination, argues that it resolves a paradox about desire that contemporary accounts do not adequately address, and shows how it supports a distinctive ethic of responsive love.

My other recent work includes a published article on the Cartesian passions and a series of articles under review or being prepared for review on themes related to my dissertation. I have a longstanding interest in the possibility of metaphysics, the nature of philosophy, and the relationship between philosophy and literature that I plan to channel into a book on love and despair in modern life.