I am an assistant professor of philosophy at the Asian University for Women, in Chittagong, Bangladesh. This site contains information about my writing and teaching, including some of my published essays, works-in-progress, and syllabi from courses that I’ve taught. This fall I will begin work as an assistant professor in the philosophy department at Boston College.
In June 2011, I completed my PhD in the department of philosophy at the University of Chicago. My dissertation defends an Aristotelian “natural goodness” view in moral philosophy. Such a view holds that moral goodness is the goodness proper to our human nature, analogous to species-specific forms of goodness in plants and non-human animals. Most of my academic writing aims to develop this Aristotelian approach – to defend it against critics, and to extend it into new areas.
Along with ethics, I am also very interested in political philosophy. As a graduate student, I taught two courses on human rights at U of C. In Fall 2011, I taught Intro to Political Philosophy at AUW. I am currently teaching an upper-level undergraduate class in political philosophy – The State of Nature and the Nature of the State. The last chapter of my dissertation applies Aristotelian insights to an issue in contemporary political philosophy – labor exploitation and its relevance to global socioeconomic justice.
My writing mostly focuses on contemporary debates that have deep historical roots. But I also enjoy working directly on historical texts, especially in ancient Greek philosophy. I have a paper forthcoming on Plato’s Sophist, and another in progress on Crito. I’ve taught three courses on Plato at the Newberry Library in Chicago, most recently on the Republic. These are continuing education classes open to the community, and they are great fun to do.
You can see photos of my time in south asia here.
The turtle was photographed by a friend. You can see more of her photos here and here.
