Early Education, Work, and Travel
I grew up in the southern interior of British Columbia. My parents were working class, and while neither went to college, they always encouraged me to do so. I got my first taste of philosophy in high school when a quirky literature teacher assigned us some Platonic dialogues --- I forget which, but I do recall that other materials that semester included lyrics by Billy Joel and the Beatles. In my senior year, another kindly literature teacher encouraged me to look into some of the smaller liberal arts colleges in Canada's smaller maritime provinces. Naïvely, I submitted a single application to the one that most appealed to my sensibility at that time: Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. To my great good fortune, I was accepted and began immediately to devour courses in literature, philosophy, and religious studies. It was only much later that I came to appreciate how lucky I was to have ended up where I did. The breadth of course offerings on philosophical topics was amazing; between just and handful of permanent faculty and the odd visiting professor I was able to take courses in the Western tradition from Plato to Kant, as well as several courses on Hindu and Buddhist philosophy and upper-level seminars on figures like Marx, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. I also took courses in the history and philosophy of science and the philosophy of biology, and developed an interest in philosophical naturalism in both science and moral philosophy. I wrote a thesis on the evolution of morality and freedom with the generous support and guidance of Dr. Paul Bogaard. It's hard to overstate the effect of this early experience in terms of shaping my basic philosophical orientation, values, and sense for the discipline, as well as for what a career in philosophy might look like.
In spring of 2008, as I was finishing up, I began to consider taking some time away from the classroom. I recall entertaining some worries about "losing momentum" in relation to grad school apps, but I was eager to try something different, even if it was just working odd jobs to save some money and travel. I recall being pleasantly surprised when my advisors seemed to think this was not an utterly foolish choice. In the end, it would be four years before I returned to grad school, and easily some of the best and most influential times of my life. Immediately following by BA, I worked and saved up for a one-way ticket to Delhi and several months of travel throughout India with some friends from high school and college. When I returned to Canada in 2009, I worked in construction to fund an extended solo trip overland through the Americas, from Vancouver down to the southern tip of Chile. We were well into the era of the "personal blog" at this point, and I recorded some highlights from this latter trip using that format. Looking back on those entries now (some fifteen years later) induces more than a few cringes - and plenty of opportunities to reflect on what philosopher Shannon Sullivan has called white ontological expansiveness, not to mention various other forms of privilege and entitlement - but I am happy to have the record to reflect on. I still enjoy travelling - solo and with friends - and get away as often as I can.
Grad School and Beyond
In 2012, I began a two-year MA at the University of British Columbia with funding from SSHRC taking courses in the philosophy of science, mind, and language (with Chris Stephens, Eric Margolis, Chris Mole, and Ori Simchen) as well as my first courses in contemporary moral and political theory (with Sylvia Berryman, Paul Russell, Scott Anderson, Matt Bedke, and Dom Lopes). I also made some good friends, and learned a lot more about what it would really mean to pursue a PhD --- something I was now more resolved than ever to do. Upon graduation, I moved to Massachusetts for my PhD at Boston University (once again with generous funding from SSHRC). While at BU, I was able to develop my early interest in the philosophy of natural and social science through a range of courses on key concepts like truth, perception, and meaning, as well as on central figures in the analytic tradition like Sellars, Carnap, and Quine (with Juliet Floyd, Walter Hopp, Tian Yu Cao, and Daniel O. Dahlstrom). I was also able to deepen my training in the history of philosophy, taking several seminars on Aristotle and Plato, Kant's first Critique, and the history of moral philosophy (with David Roochnik, Judson Webb, and Aaron Garrett), plus several courses in contemporary normative theory (with Dan Star).
Most significant, however, were a pair of seminars I took with David Lyons in the first two years of my degree: one on anarchism and political obligation, and another cross-listed in BU's school of law entitled "The Color Line and Reparations." It was in the context of these classes that I began to develop the ideas that would grow into my dissertation work. It was also around this time that I started to appreciate the depth and complexity of reparations as a philosophical topic: combining thorny issues in moral and political theory with the messy concreteness of social psychology and what is now called political epistemology, all against the backdrop of several hundred years of material and cultural history, both within the United States and across the globe. Despite having recently retired, David generously agreed to serve on my committee. Around this time, Ann Cudd had been hired as Dean of Arts and Sciences at BU, and after a few meetings to discuss some of my ideas, she also agreed to join my committee. Having by then taken two impactful courses with Juliet Floyd, I was delighted when she agreed to come aboard as well.
In 2017, with my committee in place and ABD, I moved to Boulder, Colorado where I would live and work for the next three years. During much of that time, I served as a Lecturer in philosophy at CU Boulder while completing my dissertation. The change of scenery and climate was refreshing and reminiscent of growing up near the Rockies of British Columbia. I made a number of good friends among the graduate students and faculty at CU, thanks largely to my involvement in several reading groups in contemporary feminist philosophy. In spring 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe, I defended my dissertation remotely over Zoom and wondered what would come next. After a brief stint in rural South Carolina, I began as Visiting Assistant Professor at Claremont McKenna College in fall 2021 (I was promoted to full-time in 2023). The philosophy department at CMC has been among the most friendly and welcoming I have ever visited. I have profited a great deal from the mentorship and kindness of the faculty here, and have found myself reflecting once again on my sheer good fortune in having had the chance to be part of this community over the past few years.