I am a Political Theory PhD student at the Department of Political Science at Yale, prior to which I earned an AB at Dartmouth College, majoring in Art History and minoring in Government.
Well-meaning individuals and mentors have constantly emphasised the need for coherence to the work that I do, perhaps in order to tell a good overarching narrative about the work that I do. Here you will see that heeding that advice has been quite hard for me, and that my own eclecticism reflects in the unconventional choice and spread of topics I write about. For all intents and purposes, however, one might pithily call me the practical political philosopher, interested in seeing and writing about political ideas in practice.
Dissertation Project: Between Town and Country: City Planning as Practical Political Philosophy
My dissertation project examines the political ideas behind city planning and argue that city planning is, in essence, political philosophy in practise, from Pericles and Hippodamus to the futuristic Saudi Arabian city Neom, best known for its twin mile-long skyscrapers. From the Periclean Parthenon to the “smart cities” of the Middle East, I look at how cities embody and reflect political philosophy’s practical application throughout history and chart a trajectory for cities past, present, and future.
Related to my dissertation project is the Philosophy and the Built Environment Working Group at Yale, sponsored by the Whitney Humanities Centre, that I have and continue to run.
Current Projects
Much of this year, 2024, was spent giving talks on the importance of Sportsmanship to Statesmanship and examining in depth at the role of sports and of the amateur sportsman in political education for Aristotle.
And—way to bury the lede!—the other project I am currently working on examines the deficiency in contemporary discourse on what practical philosophy entails and why it is important. I use the example of my dissertation—of city planning as political philosophy in practise—and of the poor state of philosophising about fashion, about something we do every day—dress up—and argue for the importance and relevance of this practical turn.
Past Projects
In the past I have written about the relationship between constitutions and culture through the work of Benjamin Disraeli and Edmund Burke and sought to impose coherence and trace the intellectual antecedents of the post-liberal right while simultaneously examining its affinity to early Progressivism.