Publications

 Juan-Jacobo's Paradox: The 1750 Discourse on the Arts and Sciences in Spanish America - History of Political Thought  (forthcoming) 

Abstract: Jean-Jacques Rousseau's popularity in Spanish America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is often attributed to the direct influence of his ideas in the region. This explanation tends to obfuscate the development of a distinctive Spanish American political thought In which Rousseau's ideas were creatively adapted. Attending to the reception of the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750) reveals how interest in Rousseau's alleged "paradox" of societal development framed the political imaginary of his Spanish American readers by contributing to their prolonged engagement with Enlightenment theories of progress, namely through the concepts of barbarism and civilization. 

The Pueblo and the Politics of History and Historiography in the Writings of Andrés Bello and Francisco Bilbao - Journal of the History of Ideas  (forthcoming) 

Abstract: The people (pueblo) was a central concept in nineteenth-century Spanish America that conveyed the transition from colonial rule to a republican system based on popular sovereignty. This period also saw the emergence of national histories, in which the pueblo played a legitimizing role. Intellectuals Andrés Bello (1781-1865) and Francisco Bilbao (1823-1865) offered different accounts of Chile's history and historiorgaphy as sources for understanding and liberating the pueblo respectively. Within these accounts, they combined European theories on the philosophy of history with their region's colonial past to construct a national history that would integrate the pueblo in a newly indepenendent republic.

 ‘A Gadding Passion’: Envy and the role of ‘civil and moral’ knowledge in Francis Bacon’s political thought - History of European Ideas [https://doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2023.2196295]

Abstract: Francis Bacon’s political thought cannot be understood without a close reading of his discussions about human emotions and the role they play from our private to public spheres of interaction. This paper discusses Bacon’s widespread treatment of envy as a particularly significant source of political strife within states which, when unattended, leads to civil war. Bacon rejects envy as a ‘private’ passion. As a ‘public’ passion, however, it becomes a tool for preventing the very outcome to which ‘private’ envy is inclined. Envy thus serves as a useful political tool that uncovers ambitious men ‘when they grow too great’ and helps political leaders ‘in handling sedition’. Envy, moreover, is also a central concept that elucidates Bacon’s discussions of ‘moral’ and ‘civil’ philosophy as two areas of study that need to be united for proper political rule. The paper opens with an analysis of Bacon’s treatment of envy in his Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral and his writings on historiography; it then connects Bacon’s understanding of envy and civil war with the writings of Thomas Hobbes and Michel de Montaigne; finally, it concludes with a discussion of the role of envy in Bacon’s civil and moral philosophy.

 An Aesthetic Arbiter of Politics: Revisiting George Santayana's Concept of the Psyche - Overheard In Seville: Bulletin of the Santayana Society, Vol. 39, Issue 39 (2021), 71-88. [https://doi.org/10.5840/santayana2021393910]

Abstract: The concept of the “psyche” is a prominent element in the philosophical writings of George Santayana (1863-1952). Santayana’s seemingly scattered use of the term has led scholars to criticize its invocation as marked by ambiguity. Still, the concept of the psyche occupies a central role in Santayana’s thought. In this article, I thus aim to unriddle the psyche’s role by reconceptualizing it as an aesthetic arbiter of politics. Aesthetic sensibility, I argue, is rooted in the psyche for Santayana: It is a form of perception that is conducive to a proper understanding of the world by creating a vision of it that is naturalistic. Our views on morals and politics can either stem from this naturalistic view of the world or from deracinated reason. Santayana’s writings on the psyche criticize this form of pure rationalism and reject the dichotomy between “abstract” concepts like aesthetics and morals, and “practical” ones like politics. Santayana argues that all are connected offshoots of a natural world which the psyche interprets. As I conclude, Santayana teaches us that understanding the relationship between aesthetic sensibility and the psyche can help us avoid political and moral theories that are derived from metaphysical abstractions.

A Political Modernity Beyond Machiavelli: Interiority in Montaigne's Essais and Shakespeare's Histories

• under review

José Ortega y Gasset's Rereading of Don Quixote for a Liberal National Renewal 

• co-authored work with Dr. Joshua Cherniss (Georgetown University)

"Juan-Jacobo's Paradox: the 1750 Discourse on the Arts and Sciences in Spanish American Political Thought"

• Paper presentation at the Association for Global Political Thought Annual Conference, Princeton University, Center for Human Values (April 2024) 

"Bridging Culture and Politics: Juan Egaña's Cartas Pehuenches and Nation-Building in 19th-century Chile"

• Presentation of dissertation chapter for the Latin America Research Seminar at the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS), a part of the School of Foreign Service (SFS), Georgetown University (April 2024)

  • presentation abstract can be found on the CLAS website: link

"Before Magical Realism: Facundo, Azul, Ariel, and the Literature of Latin American Political Thought"

•  Paper presented at Traditions of Latin American Political Thought and Constitutionalism (a conference within the Southern Political Science Association Meeting), New Orleans, LA (January 2024)

"A Native Modernity: the idea of nature and civilization in Jose Carlos Mariategui's Marxist thought"

•  Paper presented at University College London's workshop, The Intellectual History of Marxism in and about the Global South During the Early Twentieth Century, virtual (September 2023)

"The Trope of the Noble Savage and its Development in Latin American Thought"

•  Paper presented at the annual American Political Science Association Meeting, Los Angeles, CA (September 2023)

"Reconstructing Colonial Concepts Through Critical Genealogies in Spanish America"

• Response paper to Podcast episode "Picturing Race in New Spain," presented at Genealogies of Modernity Colloquium, Pittsburgh, PA (August 2023)

"The 'Barbarity' of Nature: Revisiting the Civilization and Barbarism Debates in Latin America"

• Paper presented at the Cambridge Graduate Conference in the History of Political Thought, Cambridge, U.K. (June 2023)

  • • Summary of conference and paper presentation in the Journal of the History of Ideas (JHI) Blog [https://jhiblog.org/2023/07/12/political-by-nature-political-thought-through-the-lens-of-the-anthropocene/]

"The Other Tempest: Simon Bolivar's Quest for Freedom and Jose Rodo's Quest for Culture"

• Paper presented at the Midwest Political Science Association Meeting, Chicago, IL (April 2023)

"Historical Narrative and the Meaning of a Modern National Identity in the Writings of Andres Bello and Francisco Bilbao"

• Paper presented at the Duke Graduate Conference in Political Theory, Durham, NC (February 2023)

"A Gadding Passion": Francis Bacon's Public and Private Dimensions of Envy In Civil War"

• Paper presented at Canterbury Institute's Politics and Poetics Conference, Oxford, UK (August 2022)

• Paper also presented at the annual American Political Science Association Meeting, Montreal, Canada (September 2022)

"The Psyche as Aesthetic Arbiter of Politics in George Santayana's Philosophy"

• Paper presented at the annual American Political Science Association Meeting, Seattle, WA (September 2021)

• Paper also presented at the George Santayana Society Annual Meeting, virtual (January 2021)

"Wilfred Owen's 'Dulce et Decorum Est'" Poetry and Politics, The Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy, University of Pennsylvania (October 2024)

"Colonial Genealogies and Conceptual Reconstruction in the Americas" Genealogies of Modernity Podcast ; Guest Contributor (December 2023)

• Response to podcast on "Picturing Race in Colonial Mexico"

Cosmos + Taxis Vol. 11, Issue 5 + 6 (2023) Revisiting Cultural History ; Guest Editor 

• Guest introduction: "The Subjects and Objects of Cultural History"

• Guest conclusion: "A Note on Brueghel and Rubens' The Allegory of Sight (1617)"

“Hagia Sophia and the (Changing) National Identity of Churches” Past Meets Present, Institute of Intellectual History, University of St Andrews (August 2020)