I specialize in the political philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr. and in the proper place for fear, anger, shame, and other strong emotions in our politics.
Dr. King
My book project is titled, King’s Theory of Justice: The Political Philosophy of America’s Last Founding Father. Philosophers and political theorists tend to encounter King as an advocate for nonviolence or civil disobedience. Or we encounter him as a case study for one of two things: 1) empirical arguments about whether (and when) violence is effective, or 2) normative arguments about whether (and when) violence is ethically permissible.
However, when King addresses violence or civil disobedience, his answers imply a different set of questions. King does not start by asking, “does violence work?” Or, “under what conditions is violence allowable?” He asks “what does it do to you when you hate someone enough to hurt him?” More broadly, King asks of any act: “how will this act form or deform you as a person?” I believe these questions, and others like them, are ripe for recovery both in normative theory and in the practical politics of our moment.
SELECT PUBLICATIONS
Books
Only Small Things Are Good or The Open Letter (Santa Fe, NM: Pagescape Press, 2018)
Teaching Reason to Sing (manuscript complete)
King’s Theory of Justice: The Political Philosophy of America’s Last Founding Father (manuscript in revision)
Peer-Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters
“King’s Modes and Methods,” Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Liberal Arts Tradition, University of Georgia Press (forthcoming)
“Emiles and Sophies: How Noah Webster Educated America’s Youth Like Characters from Rousseau.” History of Political Thought 46, no. 4 (November 30, 2025): 683–712.
“Noah Webster and the Influence of Rousseau on Education in America, 1785–1835.” American Political Thought 13, no. 4 (September 1, 2024): 505–27.
Select, Non-Refereed Articles
“Did Martin Luther King, Jr. Convert His Enemies?” Real Clear History, January 2025
“Why Churches Need Artists,” Mere Orthodoxy, February 2020
Book Reviews
On Mystery, Ineffability, Silence and Musical Symbolism, by Laurence Wuidar Augustinian Studies, November 2022
The Cambridge Companion to Augustine’s Confessions, Ed. Tarmo Toom, Augustinian Studies, October 2021
The Internet of Us: Knowing More and Understanding Less in the Age of Big Data by Michael P. Lynch, First Things, July 2016
Republic of Spin by David Greenberg, First Things, February 2016
Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in the Digital Age by Sherry Turkle, First Things, November, 2015