This dissertation consists of three self-standing essays, each of which focuses on a dialogue from Plato's later period. Together, they touch on some of his well-known views in metaphysics and moral psychology, from his theory of forms to his theory of the tripartite soul. But the topic that unifies these...
In this thesis, I argue that life and soul as analyzed in De Anima are examples of what Aristotle calls a "pros hen legomena" structure, a structure in which various things are said to be living in relation to one thing, which is the central meaning of life. The various...
This dissertation explores critiques of mass education alongside the rise of the research university as they appear in the early writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and Walter Benjamin. More specifically, it traces the development of a theory of (un)learning that inserts distance into the pedagogical relation to produce a discretized educational...
This thesis investigates Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s undermining of soteriological poetics in his comedy Der Schwierige (“The Difficult Man”), with a focus on the complex interplay between meta-language (e.g., stage directions) and dramatic dialogue, normative and contingent speech (i.e., ‘ironic speech’). By challenging what I term the “soteriological agenda” of comedy...
This dissertation is an in-depth exploration of Clarke Distributions (for 10), an original musical composition based on the use of text to establish interrelational listening and performance patterns between performers, in place of any fixed musical material. Inspired by research into improvisation, cognition, aesthetics, and linguistics, these patterns manifest as...
An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high-quality books open access for the public good. More information about the initiative and links to the open-access version can be found at... and During the antebellum period, slave owners weaponized southern Black joy to argue for enslavement, propagating images of “happy darkies.” In contrast, abolitionists wielded sorrow by emphasizing racial oppression. Both arguments were so effective that a political uneasiness on the subject still lingers. In The Politics of Black Joy, Lindsey Stewart...
This dissertation reinterprets Michel Foucault’s theory of sovereignty to offer an explanation and critique of repressive state violence. Commentators typically locate Foucault’s contribution to political thought in concepts of power that are irreducible to sovereignty or the state. In contrast, I draw on Foucault’s early genealogies of power to argue...