Emma Lunbeck
Graduate Student Assistant
Education: B.A. in Religious Studies, Yale University
Interests: Freud, Proust, Homer, the Hebrew Bible, mythology, tragedy, and dreams.
Jessie Elizabeth Alperin
Education: B.A. in Comparative Literature, Kenyon College; M.A. in History of Art, Williams College Graduate Program at the Clark Art Institute
Interests: Nineteenth-century visual art & literature, art historiography, air and atmosphere, illustrated books & works on paper, history of sculpture, poetry & poetics, aesthetic effects, theories of imagination & experience
Editor-in-Chief of Venti Journal: Air, Experience, Aesthetics: venti-journal.com.
Paul Cato
Education: B.A. in Religion and Black Studies, Swarthmore College, 2014
Interests: James Baldwin; Love Studies; Intellectual History; Religion, Literature, and Arts; African American Literature; Black Cultural Studies; Modern Religious Thought; Affect & Emotion; Audre Lorde; Fyodor Dostoevsky
Dissertation title: “Talk of Fire, Invisibility, and the Erotic: James Baldwin, African American Literature, and the Theological-Political Discourse of Active Love”
Committee: Joel Isaac (Chair), Richard Rosengarten, Sarah Hammerschlag, Kenneth Warren
Luke Foster
Education: B.A. in English and History, Columbia University, 2015
Interests: History of political thought, political philosophy, educational theory, modern receptions of the ancients, American political thought, French and German Enlightenments.
Dissertation title: "Separated Powers in the Democratic Soul: The Liberal Arts and the Pursuit of Excellence in America."
Dissertation committee: Nathan Tarcov (chair), Joel Isaac, and Joshua Mitchell (Georgetown University).
Sam Gee
Education: B.A. in History and Religious Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2017); M.A. in Social Sciences, University of Chicago (2019)
Interests: American intellectual history, religion & literature, loyalty & commitment, nature & wildness, philosophy of history
David Alejandro Hernandez
Education: BA in philosophy and English, University of California, Berkeley, 2015; MFA in poetry, Washington University in Saint Louis, 2018
Interests: Authorship; aesthetic experience; literary modernism; metaphysics & skepticism; Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Strauss, and the possibility of philosophy.
Jue Hou
Education: B.A. in English, Tsinghua University, 2017
Interests: writing and/as technology; literary modernism, esp. Chinese, Irish, Japanese, French; STS; media studies; philology and modernity.
Uday Jain
Education: M.A. (Hons) in Political Science, University of Edinburgh, 2014
Interests: Plato and Platonism in the history of political thought; the ethics and politics of psychoanalysis; Homer, Proust, and Ferrante; contemporary political economy; critical theory; Ambedkarite political thought; Black political thought.
Dissertation title: "Pedagogies of Freedom: Comparing W. E. B. Du Bois and B. R. Ambedkar"
Dissertation committee: Joel Isaac (Chair), Jennifer Pitts, Michael Dawson
Stefanos L. Jones
Education: B.A. in Philosophy, Yale University, 2020
Interests: Plato, the Sophists, Idealism, problems of error, phenomenological philosophy
Adam Katwan
Joint degree student in Social Thought and Philosophy
Education: BA/MA in Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University, 2020
Interests: Kant and German idealism, Kierkegaard, phenomenology, Wittgenstein, Jewish philosophy; perception and embodiment, language, intersubjectivity, aesthetic and religious experience; conceptions of first philosophy
David Kretz
Joint degree student in Social Thought and Germanic Studies
Education: B.A. in philosophy, literature, and intellectual history, Bard College Berlin (formerly European College of Liberal Arts); M.A. in Philosophy, École Normale Supérieure (Paris)
Interests: translation theory, 19th and 20th-century social and political thought, modernity, liberal education.
Sam Lee
Education: B.A. in Classics, Yale University (2019)
Interests: Literary self-consciousness, English and German Romanticism, Greek tragedy & its reception, Kierkegaard
Amy Levine
Joint degree student in Social Thought and Philosophy
Education: B.A. in Philosophy and English, Williams College, 2014; BPhil in Philosophy, University of Oxford, 2016
Interests: Psychoanalysis, Ethics, Kant, Modern Jewish Thought, Philosophy and Literature.
Dissertation title: "Autonomy and Anxiety."
Dissertation committee: Jonathan Lear (chair), Matthew Boyle (Philosophy), Candace Vogler (Philosophy)
Carol Lewis
Education: B.S. in Mathematics, Furman University (2018)
Interests: ancient politics, politics & literature, family, friendship, Plato, Machiavelli.
Jozef Majernik
Education: B.A. in Political Science, BISLA, 2012; M.A. in Philosophy, Leiden University
Interests: Nietzsche; Plato; Heidegger and his students (especially Jan Patočka and Leo Strauss); ethics; modern returns to ancient thought.
Dissertation: "Nietzsche's Untimely Meditations"
Dissertation Committee: Heinrich Meier, Robert Pippin, Nathan Tarcov.
Mat Messerschmidt
Education: B.A. in Philosophy and English Language & Literature, University of Michigan
Interests: secularization and the loss of faith, the corporeal in philosophy & theology, philosophy of religions, Nietzsche, Heidegger, existentialism, deconstruction, phenomenology
Dissertation title: Nietzsche's Death of God as a Physiological Event
Dissertation committee: Robert Pippin (co-chair), Ryan Coyne (co-chair), Jean-Luc Marion, David Wellbery
Johanna Mick
Education: BA in Economics and Philosophy, MA in Political Philosophy, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá; MA in the Social Sciences, The University of Chicago.
Interests: Political philosophy, philosophy of war, ethics
Dissertation: “Is War a World Apart? ‘Necessity’ in Walzer, Thucydides and Hobbes”
Dissertation Committee: Nathan Tarcov (chair), Christopher Lynch, Richard B. Miller
K. Bellamy Mitchell
Joint degree student in Social Thought & the Department of English Language and Literature
Education: B.A. in Philosophy and English, Georgetown University, 2015; M.A. in English Language & Literature, 2021
Interests: American and Canadian 20th & 21st Century Poetry and Poetics, Indigenous Literature, Migration and Movement, Critical Theory, Psychoanalysis, Phenomenology, Theories of Language and Law
Dissertation: "A Poetics of Apology"
Dissertation Committee: Sianne Ngai (co-chair, English); Andrei Pop (co-chair, Social Thought); Jonathan Lear (Social Thought); Tina Post (English, Theater & Performance Studies)
David Molina
Joint degree candidate in Social Thought and Comparative Literature
Education: B.A in Humanities/Russian and East European Studies (distinction in both majors), Yale University, 2015; M.A. in Philosophy, University of Chicago, 2017; M.A. in Russian, Middlebury College, 2020
Interests: Russian and Soviet Cinema; Russian Silver Age poetry and prose; comparative arts; literature and philosophy; German idealism; Luso-Brazilian poetry and prose; theories of allusion and intertextuality; theory and practice of literary translation.
Dissertation: “Kira Muratova and the Struggle for Mutual Interpretability”
Dissertation Committee: Robert B. Pippin, Daria Khitrova (Harvard University), Françoise Meltzer
John Muller
Joint degree student in Social Thought and Philosophy
Education: B.A. in History and Economics, Dartmouth College; J.D., Yale Law School; M.A. in Philosophy, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Interests: Self-Deception, Ambivalence, Psychoanalysis, Skepticism, Social and Political Philosophy, Ethics, Philosophy and the Arts, Disability.
Antoine Pageau-St-Hilaire
Education: B.A. in Philosophy, Université Laval (2015); M.A. in Philosophy, University of Ottawa (2017)
Interests: Ancient Greek philosophy, German philosophy, phenomenology, hermeneutics, history of political philosophy, appropriations of Plato and Aristotle in German and Continental philosophy
Dissertation title: "The Possibility and Limits of Philosophy in New Marburg Platonism. Appropriations of Plato by Leo Strauss, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Gerhard Krüger"
Dissertation Committee: Robert B. Pippin (Chair), Glenn W. Most, David E. Wellbery, Francisco J. Gonzalez (University of Ottawa)
Rik Peters
Joint degree candidate in Social Thought and Classics
Education: B.A. in Philosophy and Classics, University of Amsterdam, 2011/2012; M.A. in Philosophy, University of Amsterdam, 2014; M.A. in Classics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2014
Interests: Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy (esp. ethics and aesthetics); History of Science and History of Knowledge; History and Philosophy of Emotions; Hellenistic Literature; Modern European Philosophy (esp. Kant, Heidegger, Foucault); Lucretius.
Dissertation title: "The History of Wonder in Hellenistic Philosophy"
Dissertation committee: Elizabeth Asmis and Gabriel Richardson Lear (co-chairs), Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer, Lorraine Daston
Andrea Ray
Education: B.A. in History, Pomona College; M.A. in Social Sciences, University of Chicago
Interests: German Idealism, early modern philosophy, and history of philosophy.
Dissertation: "Reasoning Over Time: Hegel's Critique of Spinoza and the Possibilities of History"
Dissertation Committee: Robert Pippin; Susan James (Birkbeck, University of London); Lorraine Daston
Michael Rutherglen
Education: B.A. (Highest Distinction) in English, University of Virginia; M.F.A. in Poetry, University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop; M.A. in the Humanities, University of Chicago
Interests: intentionality, conceptuality, and musicality in 19th and 20th century lyric poetry; hermeneutics; phenomenology.
Dissertation title: "An Expressivist Account of Poetic Sound."
Dissertation Committee: Rosanna Warren (chair), David Wellbery, Joshua Scodel (English Department), Richard Strier (English Department)
A founding editor of The Winter Anthology (www.winteranthology.com), a collection of 21st century literature and thought published annually.
Benjamin Salman
Education: B.A. in Music and the Joint Major in Philosophy & Religious Studies, Stanford University (2018); M.M. in Music Composition, The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University (2021)
Interests: Greek philosophy (especially Plato and Neoplatonism); German philosophy (especially Fichte, Hegel, and Heidegger); the history and philosophy of logic; aesthetics; philosophy of music
John Sexton
Education: B.A. in History & Government, University of Sydney; M.A. in Social Sciences, University of Chicago
Interests: French political philosophy; American political thought; political theory.
Dissertation Title: "Unorthodox Adversaries: Tocqueville, Gobineau & the Meaning of Modernity"
Dissertation Committee: Ralph Lerner, Nathan Tarcov (co-chairs), Pierre Manent
Ben Silver
Education: B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science, University of Chicago, 2014
Interests: moral education, philosophy of law, regime preservation and constitutionalism, philosophy of labor, Aristotle.
Robert Stone
Education: B.A. in Politics, Princeton University
Interests: History of political thought, democratic theory
Dissertation Title: "Thucydides on Democratic Decision-Making"
Dissertation committee: Nathan Tarcov (chair), Matthew Landauer, Arlene Saxonhouse (University of Michigan)
Josh Trubowitz
Joint degree student in Social Thought and Philosophy
Education: B.A. in Philosophy, University of Chicago
Interests: Ancient Greek philosophy, especially Plato & Aristotle; the problem of being.
Dissertation title: "Being Manifest: Aristotle on Perception."
Dissertation committee: Gabriel Lear (chair), Agnes Callard, Martha Nussbaum.
Michail Vlasopoulos
Education: B.A., National Technical University of Athens, 2008; M.Des. in Architecture, Harvard University, 2012
Interests: Early Modern Philosophy―Descartes, Spinoza, through to Leibniz―and the Philosophy of Biology, from Aristotle to figures of nineteenth-century Continental Formalism such as Goethe, Lorenz Oken, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Louis Agassiz.
Karl von der Luft
Education: B.A., St. John's College, Santa Fe
Interests: Ancient Greek philosophy, Hegel, history & philosophy of science, political philosophy, phenomenology
Austin Walker
Interests: history and philosophy of education.
Jimmy White
Joint degree student in Social Thought and Classics
Education: B.A. in Classics and the Program of Liberal Studies, University of Notre Dame
Interests: Homer, Sophocles, similes & metaphors, prosocial behavior & non-competitive attitudes
David Williams
Joint degree candidate in Social Thought and Classics
Education: B.A. in Classics, Kenyon College
Interests: Ancient Greek poetry and philosophy, esp. Aristophanes and Plato; comedy and tragedy; ancient and modern intellectual history; historical semantics and conceptual history
Dissertation title: “The Comic Critique of Philosophy: Aristophanes, Plato, and the Bios Theōrētikos”
Rachel Wong
Education: B.A. (summa) in Social Studies, M.A. in East Asian Regional Studies, Harvard University
Interests: German idealist aesthetics and its 20th century reception, Greek historiography, cinematic modernism, ornament and teleology.
Tingfeng Yan
Education: BSc Social Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science; MA History of Political Thought and Intellectual History, Queen Mary University of London and University College London
Interests: Continental social theories; conceptions of “society”; international intellectual history
Xinyue Zhang
Education: B.A., Bard College Berlin (formerly European College of Liberal Arts), 2018
Interests: Homer, Greek tragedy, Greek philosophy (the sophists and Plato), representations of Socrates, Greek classics in French philosophy, deconstruction and its reception (Jacques Derrida and Sarah Kofman), wonder in philosophy
Matthew Zipf
Education: B.A. in Computer Science, Columbia University, 2019
Interests: American literature & philosophy; rhetoric; political trust; migration; Switzerland; and the history of journalism