1. 20th Century Continental Philosophy (Phenomenology, Deconstruction, Critical Theory; major figures including Heidegger, Derrida, Blanchot, Bataille, Nancy, Benjamin)
2. 19th Century Continental Philosophy (esp. Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche)

1. Philosophy of Literature
2. Social and Political Thought (esp. Deconstruction, Frankfurt School, College of Sociology)
3. Philosophy of Art
4. Philosophy of Religion

• B.A., Hiram College (Religious Studies), June 1991
• M.A., Vanderbilt University (Religion), December 1993
• M.A., Vanderbilt University (Philosophy), August 1998
• Ph.D., Vanderbilt University (Philosophy), August 2001

• “Ecstatic Atheism: Bataille’s ‘Community’ with Nietzsche,” SPEP, November 5, 2010,Montreal, Quebec
• “The Fate of Community: On the Conditions of Communication,” Just Theory LectureSeries, April 15, 2010, University of Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, Comparative Literature (invited)
• “Solitude, Alterity, and Violation in Juan Rulfo’s Deserts,” American Academy ofComparative Literature, April 2008, Long Beach, CA
• “Recasting the Revaluation of Values: Unavowable Filth,” An Interdisciplinary Symposium:The Sacred and the Debased: Humanity, Community and Cruelty in the Work of Georges Bataille, Occidental College, Los Angeles, February 2008 (invited)
• “Nondetermination and Exposure,” CSU Stanislaus Philosophy Colloquium, September2007 (invited)
• “Nondetermination and Exposure: Photography and the Communication of Pain,”International Association of Philosophy and Literature, June 2007, Cyprus (invited)
• “The Contestation of Community,” American Philosophical Association, Spring 2007,San Francisco (invited)
• “Georges Bataille as Curator,” Philosophy, Art, and the Uncanny, StaffordshireUniversity, May 2003 (invited)
• “The Expiation of Authority: Towards a Genealogy of Community,” AmericanPhilosophical Association (Pacific), April 2003 (invited)
• “Writing at the Threshold of Common Sense,” International Association of Philosophyand Literature, June 2002 (On Kant and the Idea of a Universal History)(refereed)
• “Crossing the Line: Heidegger, Blanchot and the Lineage of Oblivion,” North             American Heidegger Conference, Southern Connecticut State University, May2002 (refereed)
• “Crossing through the Crossing: Writing and Displacement in Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie,” Participant’s Conference of the Phaenomenologicum Collegium,Cittá di Castello, Italy, Summer 2000
• “Genealogy, History and the Work of Fiction: Cormac McCarthy and EnlightenmentThought,” International Association of Philosophy and Literature, SUNY-StonyBrook, May 2000 (refereed)
• “The Repetition of Eternal Return,” Society for Phenomenological and ExistentialPhilosophy, University of Oregon, September 1999 (refereed)
• “Heidegger and the Memory of Nietzsche,” Heidegger Conference, DePaul University,Chicago, IL, April 1999 (refereed)
• “Heidegger’s Performative Discourse,” Participant’s Conference of thePhaenomenologicum Collegium, Perugia, Italy, Summer 1998
• “On Time and Love in Nietzsche and Levinas,” Tennessee Philosophical Association,Fall 1996

• Editorial board member for Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft
• Manuscript reviewer for Indiana University Press
• Manuscript reviewer for State University of New York Press
• Article reviewer for Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy

• Co-organizer with Kalliopi Nikolopoulou, “(E)scapes of Desolation: Deserts and Wastelands in Literature, Philosophy, and Art,” American Comparative Literature Association, Long Beach, CA, April 2008
• Moderator for The Western Phenomenology Conference, “Dangerous Emotions,” Pasadena, March 2008
• Moderator for Empire, Borderlands, and Border Cultures, “Empire and Post-modernism,” March 2006
• Moderator for SPEP, “Derrida and the Democratic Tradition,” October 2005
• Co-organizer of Normalization, Exclusion, Excess, a national conference held at CSU Stanislaus, October 2005 (with James A. Tuedio)
• Faculty, The Phaenomenologicum Collegium, Cittá di Castello, Perugia, Italy, Summer
  2004
• Panel organizer, International Association of Philosophy and Literature, “Writing/Transcribing the Uncanny” (refereed)
• Assistant to the Director of The Phaenomenologicum Collegium, Cittá di Castello, Perugia, Italy, Summer 2001
• Organizer of Participant’s Conference of the The Phaenomenologicum Collegium, Cittá di Castello, Perugia, Italy, Summer 1999
• Primary organizer of Other Banalities, International Philosophy Conference, Vanderbilt University, March 1998

• Introduction to Philosophy
• Philosophical Inquiry
• Honors Critical Thinking Seminar
• Classics of Western Philosophy
• Philosophical Reading and Analysis
• Introduction to Continental Philosophy
• Philosophy through Literature
• Advanced Studies in the History of Philosophy
• Philosophy of Language
• Cognitive Phenomenology
• Professional Ethics
• Philosophy of Art
• Senior Seminar

• Existentialist Thought and Phenomenology
• Philosophy and Contemporary Issues
• Seminar in Continental Thought
• Modern Philosophy

• Introduction to Philosophy, Fall 2000
• General Logic, Summer 1999
• Introduction to Writing, two classes, Fall 1998
• Introduction to Philosophy, Spring 1998
• Introduction to Philosophy, Fall 1997
• Introduction to Philosophy, Spring 1997

Teaching Assistant for:

• Introduction to Ethics, Ethics of Punishment, Fall 1997
• Introduction to Ethics, Environmental Ethics, Fall 1996