Research Associate

I am a political theorist with research interests in the history of 19th and 20th century political thought (especially Spain and Europe), democratic theory, imperialism, liberalism/neoliberalism, and political utopia/dystopia. My book manuscript, Liberalism and the Disorientations of Democracy: José Ortega y Gasset in the Ruins of Empire, engages with Spanish liberal José Ortega y Gasset’s thought and its significance for larger debates surrounding liberalism, democracy, and fascism. Based on extensive archival research and a comprehensive reading of his corpus, I argue that the loss of the Spanish Empire inflected Ortega’s liberal-democratic commitments in ways that made him a key figure in the development of Spanish fascism. I am also currently laying the groundwork for a second book project focusing on theories of democratic self-defense during the Second Spanish Republic.