Profile

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I have a background in twentieth-century Continental philosophy, especially the phenomenology of Heidegger and Husserl. In recent years I have shifted my teaching and research focus to aesthetics, architecture and urbanism, and related issues in contemporary Continental social and political thought.

In 2002 I published a version of my doctoral thesis on Heidegger's early interpretation of Aristotle in German (Duncker & Humblot, Berlin) and in 2005 Phenomenology and Imagination in Husserl and Heidegger appeared with Routledge.

Following a research sabbatical in 2008-9 I will be publishing a further two books: Constructing Community (Rowman & LIttlefield), which compares theories of community in Habermas, Agamben, Nancy, and Ranciere with contemporaneous approaches to urban development; and Benjamin for Architects (Routledge), which examines Walter Benjamin's thought from the perspective of architectural theory and practice.

Between 2003 and 2009 I held a tenured position as Philosophy Lecturer at University College Dublin, before joining the Philosophy faculty at the University of Oregon in September 2009.

I am committed to university teaching and to making academic philosophy relevant to the concerns of everyday life.