Profile

My doctorate aims to offer a comprehensive account of Jacques Derrida’s political philosophy, particular the role of institutions in his philosophy. Through the institution, I aim to offer an account of Derrida as a highly politically engaged thinker. This involves a critical consideration of Derrida's political interventions, such as his work on human rights, education, international law, cosmopolitanism, apartheid and Europe. This project also aims to look at the unique way that Derrida deploys this within public media and draws on a substantial public corpus that has lacked critical attention. In drawing, therefore, on pieces in print media, radio and television, I also wish to address the more general question of how philosophy, media and the public space relate to each other. In considering Derrida’s conception of institutions, politics and the public space, my own project aims to also make its own contribution to our present discourse on pressing political issues. My supervisor is Dr Martin Crowley.

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Most recently, I have become interested by the potential role that phenomenology can have in helping us better understand illness as an experience. Having co-organised the 2017, What does it mean to be ill? seminar at Cambridge, I am presently developing a larger scale project that explores these questions in relation to contemporary phenomenology.

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Alongside my doctorate project, I have (variously well-defined) research interests in the following areas: The work of Islamic philosophers in France and the French-speaking world, especially Algeria; Irish Studies, in particular the relationship between contemporary Irish culture and continental philosophy; and migration studies.
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Outside of academia, I have a background in media and education. I spent a year writing on second-level education for The Irish Times, Ireland's newspaper of record, and for a number of years regularly gave interviews across all forms of national media. Alongside that, I was involved with two different companies in education in Ireland. The intersection between the media and education remains a subject of genuine interest to me and this experience is something that I aim to bring into my own research and teaching.