Research

Research Interests

Political Theory: Democratic theory, critical theory, decolonial theory, feminist political theory, theories of justice, theories of human rights

Peace Studies: Religion and peacebuilding, religion and political violence, strategic peacebuilding, transitional justice and post-violence reconciliation, nonviolent social movements

Religious Studies: Political theology, theological ethics, theoretical constructions of religion and the secular

Dissertation

“Pluriversal Peacebuilding: Decolonial Dialogue, Democracy, and the Epistemic Politics of Peace”

Committee: Atalia Omer (co-chair), Ernesto Verdeja (co-chair), Eileen Botting, Jason Springs

The operative understandings of peace that animate the field of international peacebuilding rely on unreconstructed ontopolitical assumptions implicated in world-historic levels of structural and cultural violence, captured for some decolonial theorists by the concept of modernity/coloniality. Using insights from decolonial theory and contemporary democratic thought, this project develops a hermeneutic of engagement that builds on Walter Mignolo’s notion of various decolonial “connectors” that ground practices of pluriversal dialogue–dialogue that both reflects and promotes the irreducible plurality of ways of knowing and being in the world–to explore the status of peace itself as one such connector. Developing resources within the Western canon of political theory (and in the work of Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, in particular) to assist in engaging across epistemic differences, this project indicates a new approach to thinking about ‘peace’ as the discursive grounding for comparison between diverse projects united by their rejection of the enduring violences of modernity/coloniality.

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

“COVID-19, Democracy, and (De)Colonialities.” Democratic Theory Volume 7, Issue 2 (2020). Lead author, w/Navnita Behera, Chengzin Pan, Marcos Scauso, Chih-yu Shih, Kosuke Shimizu, and Arlene Tickner.

Book Chapters

“Hideous Aspects: Levinas, Decolonial Barbarity, and the Limits of Ethical Encounter in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” for Creolizing Frankenstein, ed. Michael Paradiso-Michau (Rowman & Littlefield International, 2021).

“Populism, Post-Politics, and the Prospects for Democracy after Trump.” In Explaining Trumpism Post-2020, ed. Laura Finley and Matthew Johnson (Cambridge Scholars Press, forthcoming).

Other Publications

“Moving Beyond Inclusivity.” With Justin de Leon. International History and Politics Newsletter, “Race, Indigeneity, and the Global South in IHAP: Missed Opportunities and Possible Futures.” Volume 6, Issue 2 (Fall, 2020): 19-22.

“Introduction to Decoloniality and the Study of Religion.” Contending Modernities blog, University of Notre Dame. February 24, 2020.

“CRS: Lessons in Contemporary Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding.” Contending Modernities blog, University of Notre Dame. October 25, 2016.

“The Truth Commissions of Guatemala: Plurality and Particularity in the Human Rights Paradigm,” in The Graduate Journal of Harvard Divinity School, Volume 5, Spring 2010.

“A New Space for Justice: Reflections on Honduras,” in Witness: The Culture of Violence. Episcopal Peace Fellowship, Spring 2010

Articles In Progress

“Unsettling Peace: The Settler-Colonial Challenge to Peacebuilding’s Local Turn”

“Populism and the Political: Mouffe, Schmitt, and the Prospects for a Left Populism”

“‘In the West but not of the West: Wittgenstein, Pluriversal Dialogue, and Decolonial Forms of Relationality”

“‘A Terrific Boomerang Effect’: Arendt, Césaire, and Fanon on the Colonial Origins of Totalitarianism”

Academic Research Presentations

Toward an Ethic of Pluriversal Peacebuilding, European International Studies Association (June, 2021)

In the West but not of the West: Wittgenstein, Pluriversal Dialogue, and Decolonial Forms of Relationality, International Studies Association (April, 2021)

Re-Grounding Peace: Decolonization, Hybridity, and the Local Turn’s Settler-Colonial Problem, International Studies Association (April, 2021)

This Modern Expulsion from Humanity: Arendt, Coloniality, and the Origins of Totalitarianism. American Political Science Association (August, 2020)

Chains of White Grievance: Mouffe, Hegemony, and Ethno-Nationalist Strategy, American Political Science Association (August, 2019)

A Powerful Spring of Action: The Restorative Justice of Mary Wollstonecraft, Wollapalooza II: Daughters, Dissenters, Democracies, Discontents, American Political Science Association (September, 2018)

Hideous Aspects: Levinas, Decolonial Barbarity, and the Limits of Ethical Encounter in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Why Frankenstein Matters at 200: Rethinking the Human Through the Arts and Sciences (July, 2018)

Constructive Conflict in Decentered Democracies: Prospects for Agonistic Peacebuilding, Midwest Political Science Association (April, 2018)

Wrath and Reasoning on (In)Justice: The Prophetic Politics of Mary Wollstonecraft and Cornel West, Wollapalooza: Making the Wollstonecraftian Mind, American Political Science Association (August, 2017)

The “Radical Disjunction” Examined: Blackstone and the Limits of Revolution in the Federalist/Anti-Federalist Debate, Midwest Political Science Association (April, 2017)

Conceptualizing “Success” in Transitional and Post-Violence Justice: New Evidence and Enduring Questions, International Studies Association (February, 2017)

Corpses and Coercion: The Regulation of Pity and Grief as “Lawless” Desires in Plato’s Republic, Northeastern Political Science Association (November, 2016)

Nuclear Famine: Gamed Systems, Global Consequences, Professors for Peace Conference, (February, 2013)

Nuclear Famine: Environmental Costs and Consequences of Nuclear (In)Security, Peace and Justice Studies Association Conference (September, 2012)

PECS in the Real World: PECS Alumni Post-Guilford, Fleming Lecture Series, Guilford College (April 2011)

Military, Church, & Citizen Mobilization in Honduras, Harvard Divinity School (April, 2010)

Human Rights in Honduras After the Coup, Union Theological Seminary (March, 2010)

Human Rights in Honduras After the Coup, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University (February 2010)

Race, Structural Violence, and the War on Drugs, Phi Sigma Tau, Philosophical Society of the University of Louisville (October, 2007)

The American Nightmare: Consumer Culture and Identity, Peace and Justice Studies Association Conference (September, 2007)

Privilege, Power, and Oppression in Peace Work, Metta Center for Nonviolence Education (August, 2007)

Professional Research Experience

Research Associate for Contending Modernities, University of Notre Dame, 2016-present

Worked as a research associate with Prof. Atalia Omer to write, edit, and solicit articles for the Contending Modernities research and education initiative on the dynamics of religious and secular forces in late modernity.

Research Delegate to San Pedro Sula, Honduras on behalf of Harvard University Committee on Human Rights Studies and David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, January 2010

Conducted interviews on the role of religion in the opposition work of women’s, workers’, and other human rights organizations in the wake of the 2009 coup d’état.