writing
and research

I am a Columbia and Yale Law-trained political theorist and lawyer, with specializations in environmental political thought and the practical uses of political theory in law. I have published work in Political Theory, Environmental Philosophy, and the Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy, amongst other outlets. I have presented research at Oxford, Columbia, Yale, McGill, Frankfurt, and a wide range of Australian universities.

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Here are some of my favourite pieces:

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- "Stories We Share", in Political Theory's 50th anniversary edition (2023)

- "Three Types of Anthropocentrism", in Environmental Philosophy (2018)

- "Thinking Country", in Dark Mountain (2017)

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Here is the prologue to Ruin Country, an environmental novel.  

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My PhD dissertation, On Human Separatism,  is a critique of the techno-utopian political and legal imaginary of “human separatism”. Human separatism is the idea that Humanity should use technology to “separate” from nature.

 

My thesis charted the evolution and persistence of this idea across Western political and cultural history. It explored several approaches pioneered by marginalized communities (First Nations Australians, ecofeminists, and others) for reimagining human-nature relationships. And it proposed that these traditions should push us in the Western tradition to reimagine our own concepts and imaginaries.

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My current research revolves around two core questions:

 

1. How does introducing a concern for the environment deepen and complicate key political concepts (freedom, progress) and influence the ways we use these concepts to imagine the future?

 

2. How can we bring tools from political theory into law – where concepts gain force – to test pragmatic visions of social-ecological change?