Professional Experience

2020-2022
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellow, JFK Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.

2018-present
Coordinator, Africana Studies Program, Susquehanna University

2017-present
Assistant Professor, Philosophy, Susquehanna University

2016-2017
Lecturer, Structured Liberal Education, Stanford University

2014–2015
Research Fellow, Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie Hannover, Germany

2011-2013
Adjunct Instructor, Philosophy and Liberal Arts, Roosevelt University

2010-2013
Lecturer, Social Sciences Division (Classics of Social and Political Thought), University of Chicago

Education

2015
Ph.D., Social Thought, John U Nef Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

2014
Visiting Doctoral Student, SciencesPo, Paris, France

2010
M.A., Social Thought, John U Nef Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

2004-2006
Department of Philosophy, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL

• Completed 30 hours of M.A. coursework
• Passed comprehensive examinations in Logic, Ethics, and History of Philosophy

2004
Post-Baccalaureate Certificate, Classical Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

2003
B.A., Liberal Arts (Humanities and Social Thought Concentration) with Distinction, cum laude, Louisiana Scholars’ College, Northwestern State University, Natchitoches, LA

Awards and Fellowships

Academic Memberships

American Philosophical Association                                                                       

Center for Process Studies                                                            

Society for the Study of Process Philosophies

European Society for Aesthetics

Cultural Studies Association

Current Projects

Societies of Feeling: The Aesthetics of Social Life

Race and Reality: The Aesthetic Experience of Blackness

Public Lectures and Invited Talks

• “Incarceration, Criminalization, and Social Life,” at “Rethinking Incarceration: Abolition, Hip Hop, and Global Justice,” Panel Discussion, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, April 21, 2020. [postponed due to Coronavirus]

• “Authority, Identity, and Anti-Black Violence in Black Cop,” at “Black Aesthetics and Representations of Anti-Black Violence,” Panel Discussion, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, February 20, 2020.

• “Race and Reality,” University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, October 21, 2019.

• Public introduction to “’When We All Get to Heaven’: Wind Band Works by African American Composers,” Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, May 28, 2019.

• “Life as a Problem: Blackness as Divided Experience in Dubois,” Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie Hannover, Hannover, Germany, June 23, 2015

• “Perception and the Aesthetics of Life,” Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie Hannover, Hannover, Germany, February 17, 2015

• “Speculative Philosophy and Lures for Feeling,” Scores N°8: Lures of Speculation, Tanzquartier Wein, Vienna, Austria, March 29, 2014

• “Social Theory as Social Change,” Monkey Wrench Books, Austin, TX, August 27, 2011

Campus Talks and Events

• “Man Have I Got a Story to Tell You,” (a storytelling event sponsored by the Violence, Intervention, and Prevention Center), Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, February 10, 2020.

• “International Blackness” (informal discussion with students at the Center for Diversity and Inclusion), Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, February 4, 2020.

• “Networks and Capital” (roundtable discussion between faculty from Sigmund Weiss School of Business and School of Arts and Sciences), Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, April 11, 2019.

• “African American Composers: Black Experience and American Music,” Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, April 9, 2019.

• Screening and Discussion: “Sorry to Bother You,” Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, February 26, 2019.

• “The Discovery of What it means to Be,” in “Dismantling the Master’s House”: Intersectionality, Agency, and Activism in the work of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde,” Panel Discussion, Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, February 21, 2019.

• “The Practice of Discomfort and Acceptable Blackness” with Monica Prince (English and Creative Writing), Martin Luther King Day Teach-In, Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, January 23, 2019.

• “Being Black, Being American in the Essays of James Baldwin,” Co-Taught Seminar with Paul Cato (University of Chicago), Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, November 14, 2018.

• “Black Values: Consensus Democracy of the Akan,” Philosophy Student/Faculty Presentation (Topic: African Philosophy), Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, October 2, 2018.

• “Appropriation and Appreciation in American Contemporary Culture,” Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, March 27, 2018 (one of three part panel that gave presentations and facilitated a student discussion of cultural appropriation).

• “On Racial Sensibility,” Faculty Research Talks, Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, February 6, 2018.

• “An Aesthetic Approach to the Philosophy of Race,” Martin Luther King Day Teach-In, Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, January 25, 2018.

• Screening and Discussion: Raoul Peck’s “I Am Not Your Negro,” Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, November 2017 (co-facilitated student discussion of the film, concepts in Baldwin’s work, and contemporary racial issues).

Conference Presentations

• “Baldwin’s Activist Aesthetics,” 2020 Conference on James Baldwin, Saint Paul de Vence, France, June 18-21, 2020. [postponed until 2021]

• “Performing Diversity in Higher Education,” Cultural Studies Association Conference, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, June 1, 2019.

• “Singing Experience in Section.80: Kendrick Lamar’s Poetics of Problems,” Pop Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference, Washington DC, April 19, 2019

• “The Sense of Reality and Racial Sensibility in Baldwin’s Essays,” Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Conference, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA, November 10, 2018.

• “Visibility and Historical Sensibility,” Cultural Studies Association Conference, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, June 2, 2018.

• “Common Sense and Racial Sensibility,” American Society for Aesthetics National Conference, New Orleans, LA, November 17, 2017.

• “Aesthetic Experience and the Art of Civilization,” “Seizing an Alternative: Towards an Ecological Civilization” (International Whitehead Conference), Pomona College, Claremont, CA, June 5, 2015.

• “The Aesthetics of Critical Experience,” Philosophy and the Social Sciences Conference, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic, May 20, 2015.

• “Nature and Civilization in the Social Philosophy of A.N. Whitehead,” Gott und Nature. Perspektiven nach Whitehead,” Katholische Akademie in Berlin e.V., Berlin, Germany, February 15, 2014.

• “Mead, Whitehead, and the Sociality of Nature,” “Mead at 150” Conference, University of Chicago, April 18, 2013.

• “’What’s Really Real?’: Authenticity and Identity in Hip Hop Culture,” Pop Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference, Boston, MA, April 14, 2012.

• “Tryin’ Real Hard to be the Shepherd: Pulp Fiction and the Sociality of Action,” Pop Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference, San Antonio, TX, April 20, 2011

Workshop Presentations

• LibGuides as an Inclusive Strategy for Africana Studies (w/ Alexandrea Glenn), Center for Teaching and Learning Inclusive Pedagogy Workshop, Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, February 13, 2020.

• “Beyond Race? Forms of Sensibility in James Baldwin’s Essays,” Literature and Philosophy Workshop, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, March 7, 2019.

• “Reclaiming Civilization: Towards a Social Aesthetics of Race,” European Summer School for Process Thought (Topic: Aesthetics), České Budejovice, Czech Republic, August 9, 2018.

• “Aesthetic Experience as Social Criticism,” Forschungskolloquium, Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie Hannover, Hannover, Germany, July 16, 2015.

• “Hip-Hop, Philosophy, and the Varieties of Black Experience,” Hip-Hop and Philosophy Workshop, Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie Hannover, Hannover, Germany, June 11, 2015.

• “What is Aesthetic Experience?,” Forschungskolloquium, Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie Hannover, Hannover, Germany, January 15, 2015.

• “Speculative Philosophy and Social Theory,” Modern France Workshop, Univ. of Chicago Center in Paris, Paris, France, May 21, 2014.

• “Aesthetic Experience, Speculative Thought, and Speculative Life,” Speculation and Speculative Research Workshop, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, England, May 3, 2014.

• “Whitehead, Borges, and the Fictional Nature of Concepts,” University of Chicago Literature and Philosophy Workshop, Chicago, IL March 8, 2012.

• “Spectacle Lynching, Sovereignty, and Genocide: A Dialog with Alfred Frankowski” in APA Newsletter on Philosophy and the Black Experience, ed. Stephen C. Ferguson II and Dwayne Tunstall, vol. 19 no. 2, Spring 2020, pp. 6-9 (co-authored with Alfred Frankowski).

• “How to Partake in the Fuckery: A Roundtable Discussion on Hip-Hop, Gender, and Language,” Aesthetics for Birds, April 8, 2020. Retrieved from http://aestheticsforbirds.com/2020/04/08/how-to-partake-in-the-fuckery-a-roundtable-discussion-on-hip-hop-gender-and-language/#thomas (Contributor to Roundtable)

• “Sensibility in Section 80: Kendrick Lamar’s Poetics of Problems,” in Kendrick Lamar and the Making of Black Meaning. Christopher Driscoll, Monica Miller, and Tony Pinn ed, London: Routledge, 2019, pp. 51-66.

• "Common Sense and Racial Sensibility: Three Conversations on The Post-Racial Limits of Memorialization," in APA Newsletter on Philosophy and the Black Experience, ed. Stephen C. Ferguson II and Dwayne Tunstall, vol. 18 no. 1, Fall 2018, pp. 5-9.

• “Resisting the Habit of Tlön: Whitehead, Borges, and the Fictional Nature of Concepts,” Philosophy and Literature, vol. 42 no. 1, 2018, pp. 81-96.

• “Okulare Demokratie und demokratische Erfahrung.” in Okulare Demokratie – Der Bürger als Zuschauer, ed. by Dominik Hammer and Marie Kajewski, Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2017, pp. 171-192.

• “Being a Problem: Aesthetic Violence and the Politics of Recognition,” a response to Alfred Frankowski’s The Post-Racial Limits of Memorialization, Syndicate May 2017. Retrieved from https://syndicate.network/symposia/philosophy/the-post-racial-limits-of-memorialization/

• “Aesthetic Experience, Speculative Thought, and Civilized Life.” in Speculative Research: Lures Towards Possible Futures. London: Routledge, 2017, pp. 198-209.

• “Mead, Whitehead, and the Sociality of Nature.” in The Timeliness of G.H. Mead. ed. Daniel Huebner and Hans Joas, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016, pp. 185-205.