In my work, I study the challenges to liberal democracy, arguing that a more culturally attuned picture of liberalism might help address the objections raised by its postliberal critics.

My dissertation and book project, Between Art and Politics, turns to an unusual suspect in political philosophy—the writer Thomas Mann (1875–1955). By reconstructing Mann’s argument that the ambiguous meanings found in modern art and literature prepare citizens for life in a pluralistic, disagreement-torn society, I seek to bring a humanistic picture of liberalism back into view, defending it against critiques from postwar liberals, critical theorists, and postmodern thinkers on culture.

At Harvard, I’ve been an Edmond J. Safra Graduate Fellow in Ethics, a Graduate Affiliate of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, and a Theodore H. Ashford Fellow. I have served as Head Teaching Fellow for Peter Gordon’s course on the German philosophical tradition from Nietzsche to Habermas, as well as for undergraduate and graduate-level classes in moral and political philosophy.

I hold a B.Sc. in Government and Economics and an M.Sc. in Philosophy of the Social Sciences, both from the London School of Economics, where I was funded by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. My research has been published in Philosophy & Social Criticism, Synthese, and the Nomos series Staatsverständnisse.