Memorial University of Newfoundland

Graduate Student, Philosophy

About

My interests largely fit under the banner of “the metaphysics of psychoanalysis,” including the historical precedents (Romantic/Dynamic psychology, Schelling, Schopenhauer, von Hartmann), the psychoanalytic theorists themselves (especially Freud, Jung and Lacan), and the metaphysical offspring of this lineage (Deleuze, Badiou, Zizek, etc). Besides psychoanalysis, my philosophical roots can be located in the systems of vitalists (Spinoza, Nietzsche, Bergson). More broadly, I’m is also interested in speculative realism.

My current research involves an in-depth reading of Sigmund Freud. I am arguing essentially that the metaphysical implications of Freud’s libido-theory have largely been overlooked and that without this robust theory of libido, Freudianism devolves into two opposed and incommensurable factions. By re-situating libido theory as central to Freudian psychoanalysis, I will also explore a Freudian materialist metaphysical system in opposition to the popular Lacanian view of Freud as a structural linguist avant la lettre. As part of my overall work with Freudianism, I will explore the centrality of the 1920 piece “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” to Freudian psychoanalysis and it’s revolutionary hypothesis of the “death drive” in a forthcoming book tentatively titled Death Drive: Between Chaos and Repetition for Zer0 Books.

I also serve on the Editorial Team for Speculations: Journal of Speculative Realism and Post-Continental Philosophy, as well as Reviews Editor for Analecta Hermeneutica, the journal of the International Institute for Hermeneutics.