Bio & Interests
I am an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. I specialize in the ethics of technology, aesthetics & the philosophy of art, the phenomenology of time, and social & political philosophy. My current research focuses on the ethical, political, and phenomenological issues generated by the meteoric rise of modern digital and biomedical technologies. For example, I write and teach about how VR and XR technologies manipulate our affordances within a broader techno-capital context, and how cyborg technologies like brain-computer interface deepen an ableist political aesthetic of cure. I am also a co-curator of the multimedia art and literature journal, field|guide (book / IG / substack).
-
Oct 8: knockin’ on your screen door a book documenting Ezri Horne and Indigo Conat-Naar’s 2025 exhibition at UVA printed!
-
Publications
““On Multiple Realities”: Fringes, Liminality, & Transitionalities Between Digital & Virtual World,” Finding Our Place in the Digital World, eds. Ian Werkheiser & Michael Butler (Springer). (in press)
“Embodied Vibrations: Noise, Mood, & Subtractive Synthesis in High Intensity Acoustic Experiences.” The Journal of Somaesthetics 12 (1), 2026. https://doi.org/10.54337/ojs.jos.v12i1.11441.
“‘In Re|Pair’: Transhumanism, Brokenness, and Imperfection in Brain-Computer Interface.” The Harvard Review of Philosophy 32: 69–82, 2026. https://doi.org/10.5840/harvardreview202612865.
“Overcoming Life: Neuralink, Cyborgs and the (an)Aesthetics of Cure.” Technoetic Arts 23 (1): 29–45., 2025 https://doi.org/10.1386/tear_00140_1.
Presentations
“AI, Ethics, and the Law” Summer Faculty Panel Series, Harvard University, July 2026 (invited)
“Neurodiversity, AI, and the Academic World” Guest Lecture for MBB S-110: Neurodiversity (Prof. Juliet Sarmiento), Harvard University, July 2025 (invited)
“We Need More AI! Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Atomic Code” Society for Philosophy in the Contemporary World, Colorado Springs, CO, July 2026
“National Narratives Won’t Heal Mass Trauma” (co-authored with Rebeccah Leiby, Elon University) Society for Philosophy in the Contemporary World, Colorado Springs, CO, July 2026
“Millennial Grey" & Righteous Minimalism: Technology, Boredom, Normativity in the Bland Aesthetics of Silicon Valley” American Society for Aesthetics, Rocky Mountain Division, Santa Fe, New Mexico, July 2026
“Poetic Technology & Playing with Time: Art, Temporality, and Creativity” American Society for Aesthetics, Rocky Mountain Division, Santa Fe, New Mexico, July 2026
“Billy Pilgrim vs. The World: Mass Trauma, (C)PTSD, and the Political” Phenomenology of Time (co-authored with Rebeccah Leiby, Elon University) philosophia, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, April 2026
“Dance, Ritual, and Cyborg Performance Art,” UCCS Digital Humanities Open House, April 2026
“Merleau-Ponty & the Phenomenology of Style” Marshall T. Steel Center for the Study of Religion and Philosophy, Hendrix College, Conway, AK, Nov. 2025 (invited)
“Sound, Noise, & Attunement—Dead Palaces & SUTUR” Boston Cyber Arts Gallery / Transporter, Boston, MA, Oct. 2025 (invited)
“Cyborg Attunement: (re)Orientation, Ritual, and Embodiment in Long Duration Spaceflight” Taboo/Transgression/Transcendence in Art & Science, Ljubljana, Slovenia, Sept. 2025
“Style, Time, & "Identity"—Towards an Aesthetic/Stylistic Account of Perceptions & Persons” American Society for Aesthetics, Rocky Mountain Division, Santa Fe, New Mexico, July 2025
-
Book Projects
Poetic Technology: Time, Transgression, and the (techno)Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience
The Philosophy of Video Games, (co-edited with Michael Ardoline and Rami El Ali)
Chapters & Articles
“Living Present—Time, Grief, & the Tree of Life: Merleau-Ponty on the Techno-Phenomenology of Film” (abstract)
Perceptual Presence, Perceptual Constancy, and the Aesthetic Temporality of Style (abstract)
Non-Comparability Problems & the Hedonic Tone Account of Well-Being (abstract)
““Beyond” Humanity: Posthumanism(s), Disability, and Play in the Plurality of Embodied Perspective” for Beyond Posthumanism: Minds, Bodies, and Machines, eds. Janae Sholtz, Dorothea Olkowski, Saswat Das.
“Degrees of Uncertainty in Healthcare Regimes of Knowledge: Medical Research, Public Policies, and Clinical Treatment,” co-authored with Raphi Sassower
“Billy Pilgrim vs. The World: Mass Trauma, (C)PTSD, and the Political Phenomenology of Time,” co-authored with Rebeccah Leiby
““Millennial Grey" & Righteous Minimalism: Technology, Boredom, Normativity in the Bland Aesthetics of Silicon Valley”
“We Need More AI! Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Atomic Code”
-
Neuralink Control Ontology & Cripborg (An)aesthetics: Over|coming Life (American Society for Aesthetics, Rocky Mountain Division, Santa Fe, New Mexico, July 2024)
Overcoming Life: Neuralink, Cyborgs, and the Political (An)aesthetics of Cure (Taboo - Transgression - Transcendence in Art & Science, Malta Society of Arts, Valetta, Malta, Sept. 2023)
Shifting Between Worlds: XR, the Metaverse, and & Normative Zones of Experience (SPEP Version, TA&M, Oct. 2022 / IACAP Version, Santa Clara, June 2022)
Hyper-Reality: XR, Agency, & the Gaps Between Worlds (Invited Talk at The Prindle Ethics Institute at DePauw University, June 2022)
Synthetic Phenomenology & the Ethical Status of AI(Ethical Issues in AI & Computing Conference, Harvard/MIT, June 2022)
(Co)existing Between Worlds: Liminality, Affordances, & the Virtuality of the “Outer Wilds” (Digital Worlds Workshop, UTRGV, April 2022)
-
-
Simpliciter, Brandies University Undergraduate Journal of Philosophy
-
(Summer 2024) Simpliciter just released their first edition!! You can find the online version here. The first edition includes excellent undergraduate papers on topics ranging from Levinas and the state to essentialism in the philosophy of science and the “Duty of Justice in the Modern Ghetto,” as well as an interview with Eli Hirsch. Print versions available soon.
(Summer 2024) CFA for “Video Games in the Philosophy Classroom,” an upcoming workshop at the Teaching Hub at the 2025 APA Eastern in New York, is now available. Hosted by Rebeccah Leiby and myself, this session will explore and interrogate the pedagogical value of integrating video games into the philosophical education.