As a political theorist, my research draws on the history of 19th and 20th century thought as a lens through which to examine the motivational sources of action in contemporary politics. In other words, I’m interested in how various features of our psychological makeup shape our motivations to act politically.

My first book, Contesting Conformity: Democracy and the Paradox of Political Belonging (Oxford University Press, 2020) brings a fresh interpretive lens to the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and Friedrich Nietzsche in order to investigate the notion of non-conformity and its relationship to modern democracy. Drawing new insight from their work, the book argues that non-conformity is an intractable issue for democracy. While non-conformity is often important for cultivating a most just polity, non-conformity can also undermine democracy. Insofar as democracy depends on the ability of each citizen to exercise individual judgment, express their views, and dissent when necessary, Tocqueville and Mill enable us to appreciate non-conformity as an ethical and political ideal for democratic citizens. However, non-conformity can also undermine democracy, as Nietzsche helps us see, insofar as unconstrained expressions of non-conformity may stand in tension with the moral and political equality that is constitutive of democracy. So while non-conformity is valuable for democracy, non-conformity is not necessarily democratic. This book draws on the work of Tocqueville, Mill, and Nietzsche for understanding this intractable relationship and offers resources for navigating the relationship in contemporary democracies in ways that promote justice and freedom. Articles drawn from this project have been published in Constellations (2017) and Philosophy & Social Criticism (2015).

Since Contesting Conformity, I have turned my attention to the kinds of motivations necessary for generating social change in contexts of historical injustice. This is the focus of my second book project, White Losses: Moral Psychology and the Demands of Racial Justice, which is under advance contract at Oxford University Press. This project employs the thought of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. Du Bois, and James Baldwin—in conjunction with analyses of popular forms of American liberalism and contemporary political theory—to illuminate the psychological transformations required by members of historically dominant groups for the sake of a more egalitarian society.

Over the last several years, there has been a growing awareness regarding the legacies of racial domination in terms of European colonialism and American chattel slavery. This growing awareness is, in part, the result of public history initiatives that acknowledge the centrality of racial domination and its ongoing effects in their respective national histories. Conversely, it is assumed that truth-telling about past racial injustice is likely to motivate them to create a more racially just present and future. Drawing new insight from the writings of Wells, Du Bois, and Baldwin, White Losses critically examines this assumption. It argues that both public discourse and academic work on racial injustice are committed to the view that improving our epistemic practices—by enhancing our knowledge and encouraging acknowledgment of past racial injustice—is likely to motivate individuals to dismantle racially unjust structures. While affirming the importance of knowledge, especially for historically marginalized groups, this project argues that its emphasis in current approaches risks overburdening the epistemic capacities of historically dominant groups for motivating the pursuit of racial justice. Moreover, this emphasis obscures the significance of non-epistemic sources of racial dominance—namely, white attachment to racialized advantages—as well as the potential losses that will come with relinquishing such domination. This suggests that the realization of a racially egalitarian society requires the willingness of whites to lose their attachment to racialized advantages. In short, what is required is a moral psychology of white loss. By reconstructing a skeptical tradition in Black political thought to articulate the deep-seated, non-epistemic sources of racial dominance with which advocates of racial justice must contend, White Losses shows how this tradition can help guide strategies today to allow for the acceptance of white loss. The project also helps us appreciate the thought of Wells, Du Bois, and Baldwin in new ways, thus advancing scholarship in the history of political thought even as it contributes to contemporary discussions regarding racial resentment, misinformation, and collective memory.

Articles drawn from this project have been been published in The Journal of Politics (2021), Polity (2022), and Political Theory (2024). This project has been generously supported by the National Humanities Center, the Bogliasco Foundation, the W.E.B. Du Bois Center, Magdalen College at the University of Oxford, and the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities.