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I am a PhD candidate in American literature at Washington University in St. Louis. I specialize in nineteenth-century American literature, focusing on the nonfiction writing from the American Transcendentalists and Pragmatists. My research focuses on writers who appear in this century on the periphery of various emerging disciplines, such as the empirical life and psychological sciences. These writers, I argue, use features of the aphorism, like incompleteness, suggestiveness, and the encouragement of constant readerly engagement and interpretation—features typically seen as poetic—in their unique prose.
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In my dissertation, Pragmatic Ambiguities: Aphoristic Thinking in the American Nineteenth Century, I discuss this stream of aphoristic thought among an interconnected group of writers: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, William James, and W. E. B. Du Bois. All of these writers use the aphorism to engage readers in a never-ending process of interpretation. In defining the aphorism, I point to the German tradition of Aphorismus (as distinct from Sentenz: the "sentences" or maxims, especially of the French moralists) to identify in the form an inherent evasiveness and ambiguity. Along the way, I draw on the extensive history of the aphorism—from the medical writings of Hippocrates to the scientific hypotheses of Francis Bacon—to situate the form among science studies, affect theory, and a wide range of transnational theories of the aphorism.
I am currently on a Fulbright Research Fellowship in Germany. I am being hosted by the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, part of Freie Universität Berlin.
WashU Homepage | JFK Institute Homepage
I am currently on a Fulbright Research Fellowship in Germany. I am being hosted by the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, part of Freie Universität Berlin.
WashU Homepage | JFK Institute Homepage
Upcoming Events
March 21–25, 2022, Heidelberg, Germany (held virtually): I will present my dissertation topic at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies Spring Academy.
March 31–April 2, 2022, Coral Gables, FL: I will present the paper "'A Penumbra of Vagueness': W. E. B. Du Bois's Aphoristic Reconstructions in The Souls of Black Folk" at C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists. This is part of my organized panel, "W. E. B. Du Bois's Reconstruction of Language."
July 6–10, 2022, Concord, MA: I will present the paper "Aphoristic Emerson and the German Aphorismus" at the Thoreau Annual Gathering. This will be part of a panel hosted by the Ralph Waldo Emerson Society.
July 12–14, 2022, Seville, Spain: I will present the paper "Dickinson's Scattered Fragments: Alienation and Affect in the Aphoristic Prose" at the International Conference of the Emily Dickinson International Society.
March 31–April 2, 2022, Coral Gables, FL: I will present the paper "'A Penumbra of Vagueness': W. E. B. Du Bois's Aphoristic Reconstructions in The Souls of Black Folk" at C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists. This is part of my organized panel, "W. E. B. Du Bois's Reconstruction of Language."
July 6–10, 2022, Concord, MA: I will present the paper "Aphoristic Emerson and the German Aphorismus" at the Thoreau Annual Gathering. This will be part of a panel hosted by the Ralph Waldo Emerson Society.
July 12–14, 2022, Seville, Spain: I will present the paper "Dickinson's Scattered Fragments: Alienation and Affect in the Aphoristic Prose" at the International Conference of the Emily Dickinson International Society.