Scholarship
Welcome! I am a political theorist studying at Georgetown University, with American government as my secondary field. I am interested in the moral psychology undergirding theories of sovereignty, constituent power, and constitutional order. My current research focuses on a body of sixteenth-century thinkers associated with French public humanism and the French and Swiss reformations. I am interested in teaching in the fields of political theory, American government, and constitutional law. You can find more on my current research and teaching experience below.
Research
As a Ph.D. candidate in political theory at Georgetown University, I have enjoyed teaching and writing on a range of texts from the history of political thought. My research focuses on a body of constitutional writing that emerged during the French Reformation and Wars of Religion, a key period of transition from medieval to modern political orders. In my dissertation, I seek to evaluate several permutations of constitutional argumentation—along with their concomitant theories of sovereignty, state, legitimacy, and resistance—that emerged under conditions of sectional violence and civil war, especially following the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 1572. Key figures of my study include Jean Calvin, Théodore de Bèze, François Hotman, and Jean Bodin, while relevant contexts include conciliarism and Gallicanism, humanist writings on counsel, French legal humanism, and broader currents of Protestant political thought.
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Other closely related interests include medieval and early modern mirrors for princes (Christine de Pizan, Desiderius Erasmus, Guillaume Budé) and writings on commercial friendship, economic statecraft, cosmopolitanism, and reason of state during the long sixteenth century (Lorenzo Valla, Desiderius Erasmus, Thomas More, Giovanni Botero).
Portrait of Jean Calvin by Titian (16th c.)
via Wikimedia Commons
Papers in Progress
Jean Calvin's 1532 Seneca Commentary
Google Books, University of Ghent
The Unbridled Prince: Humanist Counsel and its Perils in Calvin's Seneca Commentary (1532)
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This paper explores the political thought of Jean Calvin’s Commentary on Seneca’s De Clementia in its intellectual and political contexts, focusing especially on Calvin's engagement with northern humanist writings on counsel. Presented at the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference in Minneapolis on October 28, 2022, and as a lightning talk at the MPSA 2023 Annual Meeting on April 13, 2023.
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Jean Calvin's 1536 Institutes as a Supplicatory Libellus
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This paper explores the legal argument of Jean Calvin's 1536 Institutes of the Christian Religion in its legal and intellectual contexts, considering especially Guillaume Budé and other legal humanists' writings on law, power, and princely authority. Presented at the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference on October 28, 2023.
Teaching
While teaching and studying at Georgetown, I have had the opportunity to serve as instructor of record for GOVT 1800: Elements of Political Theory (Summer 2023) and to lead discussion sections through five courses in the history of political thought and one course in American government. My teaching interests lie at the intersection of early modern political thought, American institutions, and constitutional law. I have included links to a syllabus from my summer 2023 course and to a proposed syllabus for a forthcoming seminar course.
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Sample Syllabi
Figure of Justice from Ambrogio Lorenzetti's The Allegory of Good Government (1338), via Google Arts and Culture.