I am Andrew W. Mellon Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Mount Holyoke College, and the author of Dangerous Art: On Moral Criticism of Artworks (Oxford University Press, 2020), and editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Art. I am the former Director of the Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts.

I am interested in both ethics and aesthetics, but most of my work is at the intersection of these two fields. I am interested in imaginative engagement with artworks, audience engagement and interpretation, and other aspects of artistic practice and reception. I teach a wide range of courses in ethics, metaethics, medical ethics, philosophy of the arts, and the philosophies of ancient Greece and pre-Han China.

If you’d like to learn more about my research, see here.

Blog entries, videos, etc.:

Here is an interview I did with Brandon Polite as part of his wonderful Polite Conversations YouTube series. It’s called “Fan Fictions, Fan Edits, and the Value of Derivative Artworks.”

This video is a conversation with Darren Hudson Hick, Sherri Irvin, Alex King, Brandon Polite, and myself about the Bloomsbury Contemporary Aesthetics Case Study series. My case study is about the fan edit version of The Phantom Menace, called The Phantom Edit.

Here is a reading from my book Dangerous Art and a discussion with Dr. Jerrine Tan hosted by the Odyssey Bookshop.

Is it Rational to Condemn an Artwork for an Artist’s Personal Immorality? Guest post on Oxford University Press Blog (October 3, 2020).

Here is a video of me talking about my paper, “Artists vs. Audiences,” at the Aesthetics for Distant Birds Workshop, along with Antony Aumann, Sergio Gallegos Ordorica, and Vid Simoniti.

What Fandoms Can Teach Us about the Value of Plot Holes and the Badness of Bad Artists. Guest post on Aesthetics for Birds (May 18, 2019).

When the Movie Is Not Like the Book: Faithfulness in Adaptations. Guest post on Oxford University Press Blog (April 8, 2019).

Damn the Consequences. Guest post on Aesthetics for Birds (August 16, 2014).