Academic Positions:

• Wellesley College, MA

  • Associate Professor of Philosophy, July 2019—present

    • Faculty Director of the Frost Center for the Environment, July 2020—June 2023

  • Assistant Professor of Philosophy, July 2013—June 2019

Education:

• University of California—Berkeley

  • Ph.D. Philosophy, May 2013

• Yale University, New Haven, CT

  • B.A. with distinction in both Philosophy and English, May 2007

Areas of Specialization:

• Philosophy of Art, Culture, and Environment; Moral, Political, and Aesthetic Theory

Publications: 

(for citation: Matthes, Erich Hatala)

Books:

• What to Save and Why: Identity, Authenticity, and the Ethics of Conservation,  forthcoming from Oxford University Press, expected publication September, 2024.

  • What does a sanctuary for Hawaiian crows have in common with a troop of robots programmed to perform the Māori haka, or recreations of World Heritage Sites built in Minecraft? They are all attempts to save things from loss, disappearance, or destruction. Every one of us is confronted by questions about what to save, whether we’re considering old keepsakes, a family tradition, or a local park. What should we save and why? How and from what? By whom and for whom? This book brings together insights from a wide range of contexts to help readers consider these questions for themselves.

• Drawing the Line: What to Do with the Work of Immoral Artists from Museums to the Movies, Oxford University Press, 2022.

  • Reviews and discussions:  Hyperallergic, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, Le Point, The Arts Fuse (plus a follow-up), The Sunday Times, The Toronto Star, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Philosophy in Review, Times Literary Supplement, Philosophical Quarterly, Analysis, Moneycontrol. Also mentions in The Atlantic and The Baffler.

  • Audiobook: read by Adam Verner, published by Tantor Audio, May 2022 

  • Translations: Simplified Chinese, Yilin Press, (forthcoming ~2024)

Papers:

• "Beauty and Love of Place" forthcoming in The Routledge Handbook of Nature and Environmental Aesthetics [draft]

• "Intrinsic and Universal Value in Heritage Ethics" forthcoming in The Routledge Handbook of Heritage Ethics [draft]

• "Immoral Artists," in The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Art, ed. James Harold, 2023. [draft]

• "Paul Gauguin's Manao Tupapau (Spirit of the Dead Watching) (1892)," in Bloomsbury Contemporary Aesthetics, ed. Darren Hudson Hick (2023).

• "Immoral Artists and Our Aesthetic Projects: A Commentary on Mary Beth Willard's Why It's OK to Enjoy the Work of Immoral Artists,"  British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 62, No. 4 (2022): 517-525.

•  "How Museums and Arts Institutions Can Deal with the Problem of Immoral Artists: A Response to Willard," British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 62, No. 4 (2022): 559-566.

• “Portraits of the Landscape,” in Portraits and Philosophy ed. Hans Maes. Routledge, 2020. [draft]

• "Environmental Heritage and the Ruins of the Future," in Philosophical Perspectives on Ruins, Monuments, and Memorials, eds. Carolyn Korsmeyer, Jeanette Bicknell, and Jennifer Judkins. Routledge, 2019. [draft]

• "Cultural Appropriation and Oppression," Philosophical Studies, Vol. 176, No. 4 (2019): 1003-1013. [draft]

• "Who Owns Up to the Past? Heritage and Historical Injustice," Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Vol 4, No. 1 (2018): 87-104.

• "Authenticity and the Aesthetic Experience of History," Analysis, Vo. 78, No. 4 (October 2018): 649-657. [draft]. 

• "'Saving Lives or Saving Stones?' The Ethics of Cultural Heritage Protection in War," Public Affairs Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 1 (January 2018): 67-84 . [draft]

• "The Clean Plate Club? Food Waste and Individual Responsibility" (with Jaclyn Hatala Matthes), in The Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics, ed. Anne Barnhill, Mark Budolfson, and Tyler Doggett (New York: Oxford University press, 2018): 313-330. [draft]

• "Repatriation and the Radical Redistribution of Art," Ergo, Vol. 4, No. 32 (December, 2017): 931-953. 

  • Featured on the Social Justice & Museums Resource List, edited by Tanya S. Autry

• "The Ethics of Historic Preservation," Philosophy Compass, Vol. 11, No. 12 (December 2016): 786-794. [draft]

• "Love in Spite of," in Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Vol. 6 (USA: Oxford University Press, 2016): 241-262. [draft]

• "Cultural Appropriation Without Cultural Essentialism?" Social Theory and Practice, Vol 42, No.2 (April 2016): 343-366. [draft]

• "On the Democratic Value of Distrust," Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, December 2015: 1-5.

• "Impersonal Value, Universal Value, and the Scope of Cultural Heritage," Ethics, Vol. 125, No. 4 (July 2015): 999-1027. [pdf]

• "History, Value, and Irreplaceability," Ethics, Vol. 124, No. 1 (October 2013): 35-64. [pdf]

  • Featured for discussion at PEA Soup with critical précis by Carolyn Korsmeyer.

Encyclopedia Entries, Guides, and Misc. Academic Writing:

• “The Ethics of Cultural Heritage,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),  URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/ethics-cultural-heritage/>

• "Art and Cultural Heritage," a curriculum diversification guide published by the American Society for Aesthetics, 2017 (Updated 2020).

• “The Experience of Digital Models” (a comment on Amy Jeffs, "Disciplining the Digital: Virtual 3D Reproduction, Pilgrim Badges, and the Stuff of Art History"), British Art Studies, Issue 6 (June 2017).

Reviews:

• Review of Things: In Touch with the Past by Carolyn Korsmeyer, The Philosopher's Magazine, No. 86, 2nd Quarter, 2019. [draft]

• Review of Patina: A Profane Archaeology by Shannon Lee Dawdy, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 76, No. 2 (2018): 249-252.

• Review of Education, Values and Ethics in International Heritage: Learning to Respect by Jeanette Atkinson, in the International Journal of Heritage Studies, (September 18, 2017). 

• Review of Modern Honor: A Philosophical Defense by Anthony Cunningham, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, (November 8, 2013).

Public Writing:

• Contribution to the roundtable "'So Bad It's Good': How to Love Bad Movies" on Matt Strohl's book Why It's OK to Love Bad Movies, Aesthetics for Birds, 4/14/22

• "Love the art, disgusted by the artist? Maybe philosophy can help," Psyche, 3/14/22

• "Survival is Insufficient: Coming to grips with trauma through art and play in Station Eleven and Yellowjackets," Aesthetics for Birds, 1/19/22

• "Can We Still Bump n' Grind to R. Kelly?" Zócalo Public Square, 11/29/21

  • Featured as a Zócalo favorite essay of 2021.

• "How fake things can still help us learn," OUP Blog, 3/6/20

• Five Philosophers Discuss "Joker," Aesthetics for Birds, 10/22/19

• My top 5 TV shows of the decade (not really philosophy, but whatevs, they called me a TV expert!!), Aesthetics for Birds, 12/17/19

• "Saving lives or saving stones? Two sides of the same coin?" Heritage in War Blog, 2/12/19

• "Artworld Roundtable: Can Today's Artists Still Sell Out?" Aesthetics for Birds, 9/13/18

• "Artworld Roundtable: Is Cultural Appropriation Ever Okay?" Aesthetics for Birds, 8/22/18

• "Can Nicki Minaj's "Chun-Li" be Cultural Appropriation?" Aesthetics for Birds, 7/11/18

• "Are We Living in a Horror Movie?" The Spoke, 10/31/17

• "Why museums need their own ethics departments," Apollo Magazine, 9/4/17

  • Featured as a “Need-to-Read” piece by Artnet.com

  • Featured as an Apollo “Editor’s Pick”

  • Discussed in Artnet’s “The Gray Market” column, October 2, 2017 

  • Featured on the Social Justice & Museums Resource List, edited by Tanya S. Autry

• "Black Market Art: How to Restore Ethics to the Antiquities World" (with Liza Oliver), WBUR's Cognoscenti, 4/24/17

• "Digital replicas are not soulless – they help us engage with art," Apollo Magazine, 3/24/17 

  • Featured as an Apollo “Editor’s Pick”

• "Palmyra's ruins can rebuild our relationship with history," Aeon Magazine, 3/8/17

  • Featured in the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage's "Folklife Friday," "a selection of the week's best cultural heritage pieces."

  • A winner of the APA Public Philosophy Op-Ed contest, 2018

Interviews and Misc. Media:

• I've been interviewed for articles published by The Atlantic, CNN, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, How Stuff Works, and other venues.

• A short interview about Drawing the Line on Front Row from BBC4.

• A discussion of Drawing the Line and The Usual Suspects with Justin and Laura Khoo at Cows in the Field

• An interview about Drawing the Line at the Walled Garden Podcast.

• I wrote up some publishing advice for The Philosopher's Cocoon. It's pitched as being for liberal arts college faculty, but much of it probably applies in other contexts, too.

• A debate about "cancel culture" with Garry Kasparov, Kmele Foster, and Karen Attiah, hosted by Intelligence Squared. Story here.

• An interview with Brandon Polite about my book Drawing the Line. (And a follow-up conversation with philosophfriend Mary Beth Willard about what artists owe us!)

• An interview about "cancel culture" and the arts for "The Week in Art" podcast from The Art Newspaper.

• There are some clips of me chatting about restoration sprinkled through this free course on "Faking Nature" from the Open University.

• An interview about cultural heritage preservation for Open Questions, the podcast from the University of Toronto Center for Ethics.

• My contribution to the 100 Philosophers, 100 Artworks, 100 Words series at Aesthetics for Birds.

• I read from Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk as part of the What's Wellesley Reading series.

• A short video on the concept of universal value in discussions of heritage for The Missing: Rebuilding the Past, an exhibit at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY), December 2015.

• A few blog posts I wrote for The Creativity Post back in 2012 while I was finishing my PhD (my views on many of these topics have probably changed since then, but they're out there).

Dissertation:

• Engaging with the Past: Essays on History, Value, and Practical Reason, 2013 

  • Committee: R. Jay Wallace, Niko Kolodny, Kinch Hoekstra

Selected Awards, Grants, and Fellowships:

• Mellon Interdisciplinary Course Development Grant

  • Wellesley College, Fall 2021

• Newhouse Summer Fellowship

  • Newhouse Center for the Humanities, Wellesley College, Summer 2020

• Public Philosophy Op-Ed Contest Winner

  • American Philosophical Association, 2018

• Paulson Ecology of Place Course Grant,

  • Wellesley College, Summer 2018

• Mellon Evidence-Based Teaching Course Grant,

  • Wellesley College, Summer 2018

• Curriculum Diversification Grant

  • American Society for Aesthetics, Summer 2017

• NEH Summer Institute on Space, Place, and the Humanities

  • NEH/Northeastern University, Summer 2017

• Mellon Digital Humanities Pilot Grant

  • Wellesley College, Summer 2017

• Mellon Blended Learning Initiative Grant

  • Wellesley College, Summer 2016

• Ann M. Maurer Public Speaking Course Development Grant

  • Wellesley College, 2014-2015

• Mellon Sawyer Seminar Graduate Fellowship

  • Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/Biology Department, Berkeley, 2012-2013

• Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award

  • Graduate Division, Berkeley, 2012

• Dean's Normative Time Fellowship

  • Graduate Division, Berkeley, Fall 2010 and Spring 2012

• Ralph W. Church Fellowship

  • Philosophy Department, Berkeley, 2007-2008

• Gordon Barber Memorial Prize

  • English Department, Yale, 2007

• James A. Veech Prize

  • English Department, Yale, 2004 and 2006

• President's Public Service Fellowship

  • Office of New Haven and State Affairs, Yale, Summer 2005

Talks and Comments 

• "Conservation as a Method of Remembering (and Forgetting)"

  • Royal Institute of Philosophy, London Lecture Series, January 2025

• Title TBA

  • Princeton University Center for Human Values

• "The Conservation of Cultural Heritage: from what should cultural heritage be saved?"

  • Workshop  on Cultural Heritage: Ethics, Politics and Value, All Souls College, Oxford, April 2024

• "Correctness and Convincingness: The Problem of Misrepresentation in Fiction"

  • ASA Annual Meeting, Arlington, VA, November 15-18, 2023

• Author-meets-critics session on Drawing the Line

  • ASA Rocky Mountain Division, Santa Fe, NM, July, 7-9, 2023

• Author-meets-critic discussant on James Harold's Dangerous Art.

  • APA Central Division, Denver, CO, February 24, 2023

• A talk about the problem of immoral artists

  • Parr Center for Ethics, UNC Chapel Hill, February 7, 2023

• A discussion about the problem of immoral artists

  • The Kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke University, February 6, 2023

• "Representation and Misrepresentation in Art"

  • Colloquium in Social and Political Philosophy, LMU Munich (virtual), May 13, 2022

  • Brandeis University Philosophy Department, April 29, 2022 

• "What do we do with good art by bad people?" (With Mary Beth Willard)

  • Mt. Holyoke College Philosophy Department, Gail Caldwell Stine Lecture Series, April 2022 

• Discussant for manuscript workshop on Cecile Fabre's "Snatching Something From Death – Value, Justice, and Humankind’s Common Heritage"

  • The Jean Beer Blumenfeld Center for Ethics at Georgia State University (virtual), March 18. 2022 

• Comments on Emily Robertson's "Permission and the Permissibility of Cultural Appropriation"

  • American Society for Aesthetics Pacific Division Meeting, March 19-21st, 2021 

• "Pennoni Panels: When Artists Behave Badly," 

  • Drexel University, January 21st,  2021 

• Comments on Jennifer Lena's Entitled

  • American Society for Aesthetics 77th Annual Meeting, November 13th 2020 

• "When Good Artists Do Bad Things"

  • Newhouse Center for the Humanities, Wellesley College, May 6, 2021

  • Wellesley Club of the Pioneer Valley, March 23rd, 2021 

  • The Robert Audi Memorial Lecture, Colgate University Philosophy Department, March 16th , 2021 

  • Wellesley Club of Atlanta, November 19th, 2020 

• "What Does Cultural Heritage Preservation Preserve?" 

  • Heritage in War Conference, Loyola University, New Orleans, March 18-19th, 2020

  • (Cancelled due to COVID-19)

• "Problematic Faves"

  • Bates College, Philosophy Department colloquium, November 14th 2019 

• "What Does Conservation Conserve?"

  • Conserving Active Matter Symposium, Bard Graduate Center, November 8th, 2019 

• Comments on Szu-Yen Lin's "Themes in literature: Universalism and skepticism"

  •  American Society for Aesthetics 76th Annual Meeting, Phoenix, AZ, October 10th-13th, 2019 

• "Ethical Criticism of Artists"

  • Dartmouth Workshop on Ethics and the Arts, May 24th-25th, 2019 

• "What Does Digital Preservation Preserve?"

  • "The Future of Palmyra in the Digital Age," Getty Villa, Saturday, February 2nd, 2019 

• "Should we Unite 4 Heritage? The Ethics of Cultural Heritage Preservation"

  • Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT, September 24th, 2018 

• Lecture on "Appropriation" for Short Course on "Who does art belong to?"

  • Aspen Art Museum, May 16, 2018

• "Portraits of the Landscape"

  • The Philosophy of Portraits: University of Maryland, College Park, April 13-14

• Comments on C. Thi Nguyen and Matthew Strohl’s “Cultural Appropriation and the Intimacy of Groups”

  • Pacific APA: San Diego, March 28-31, 2018

• Comments on Nick Riggle’s On Being Awesome

  • Author-meets-critic session, Eastern APA: Savannah, January 3-6, 2018

    • (Rescheduled to Pacific APA due to bomb cyclone)

• "Authenticity and the Aesthetic Experience of History"

  • American Society for Aesthetics 75th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, November 15-18, 2017

• "'Saving Lives or Saving Stones?' The Ethics of Cultural Heritage Protection in War" 

  • CU Boulder, Morris Colloquium on War and Cultural Property, April 27th, 2017

• "Environmental Heritage and the Ruins of the Future"

  • University of Pennsylvania, Ecotopian Toolkit for the Anthropocene Conference, April 13-15th, 2017

• "Repatriation and the Radical Redistribution of Art"

  • Bard College, Philosophy Department Colloquium, April 3rd, 2017

• "Who Owns (up to) the Past? Property Metaphors and Cultural Heritage"

  • UConn Injustice League Lecture Series, September 13th, 2016

  • Department of Philosophy, Connecticut College, October 13, 2015

  • Conference on Metaphors in Use, Lehigh University, October 8-9, 2015

• Comments on Meena Krishnamurthy's "Radical Distrust, Ch. 1"

  • Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference, August 2-6, 2015

• Comments on Kyla Ebels-Duggan, "Bad Debt: The Kantian Inheritance of Humean Desire"

  • Dartmouth Workshop on Ethics and Practical Reason, May 29th-30th

• "Saving the Writing on the Wall: two models for street art and its preservation" 

  • (Co-authored with Alison Lanier and Angela Sun)

  • Art in and of the Streets, The Pratt Institute and NYU, March 5-7, 2015

    • Featured on Wellesley College News

• "Love and Harmful Features of the Self" (published as "Love in Spite of")

  • Arizona Workshop in Normative Ethics, January 2015

• "Cultural Appropriation Without Cultural Essentialism"

  • Dartmouth Work-in-progress workshop, May 2015

  • Conference on Dominating Speech, University of Connecticut, November 2014

• "The Conservative Disposition and Restoration in Art and Ecology"

  • Workshop on Conservatism, University of Zürich, November 2014

• Comments on Candice Delmas's, "Samaritanism and Civil Disobedience" 

  • Workshop on the Duty to Resist Oppression, the University of Connecticut, September 2013

• Comments on Hallie Liberto's, "The Exploitation Solution to the Non-Identity Problem"

  • Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress, University of Colorado—Boulder, August 2013

• "Avoiding Noxious Markets in Cultural Heritage"

  • Conference, The Past for Sale? UMass Amherst, Center for Heritage and Society, May 2013

• "What's the Point of Preservation?"

  • Society for Applied Philosophy Annual Conference: Zürich, Switzerland, June 2013

  • Wellesley College, Department of Philosophy, February 2013

  • University of Toronto, Department of Philosophy, January 2013

  • UC Berkeley, Department of Philosophy, November 2012

• "Value and Reasons for Preservation"

  • APA Pacific Division Colloquium Session, Seattle, WA, April 2012*

• "Historical Significance, Irreplaceability, and the Value of Authenticity" [schedule]

  • Symposium on Current Questions in Authenticity, organized by the Society for Cultural Heritage, Arts, and the Law, University of California, Berkeley, February 2012

Teaching: 

   Wellesley:

• PHIL/ES 105: First Year Seminar: The Philosophy of Food: Spring 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2021 (non-FYS)

• PHIL 106: Introduction to Moral Philosophy: Fall 2013, Fall 2018, Spring 2020

• PHIL 203: Philosophy of Art: Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Summer 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2022, Spring 2024

• PHIL/ES 233: Environmental Ethics: Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2023

• PHIL/ES 234: From Wilderness to Ruins: Fall 2016, Spring 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2022

• PHIL 244: Moral Powers, Fall 2024

• PHIL 256: Ethical Theories: Spring 2014, Spring 2015

• PHIL 303: Authenticity: Fall 2018, Spring 2025

• PHIL 304: Terrible Beauties: Spring 2021, Spring 2024

• PHIL/ES 308: Environmental Aesthetics: Fall 2023

• PHIL 330: Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: Ethics for Everyone: Fall 2015, Spring 2020

• PHIL 338: Who Owns the Past? Spring 2015 (as PHIL 340), Spring 2018, Fall 2020

    Berkeley:

    as Primary Instructor: 

• PHIL 2: Individual Morality and Social Justice: Summer 2011

    as Graduate Student Instructor (TA): 

• PHIL 25a: Ancient Philosophy: Klaus Corcillius, Fall 2011 

• PHIL 2: Individual Morality and Social Justice: Niko Kolodny, Spring 2011

• PHIL 108: Contemporary Ethical Issues: Niko Kolodny, Summer 2010 

• PHIL 100: Philosophical Methods: Alva Noe, Spring 2010 

• PHIL104: Ethical Theories: R. Jay Wallace, Fall 2009

• UGBA 107: The Social, Ethical, and Political Environment of Business: Alan Ross, Summer 2009 

• PHIL 25b: Modern Philosophy: Hannah Ginsborg, Spring 2009 

• PHIL 2: Individual Morality and Social Justice: Hans Sluga, Fall 2008

Service:

    Wellesley:

• Advisory Faculty for Environmental Studies, 2013-present

• Parliamentarian of Academic Council, 2022-2027

• Advisory Board, Newhouse Center for the Humanities, 2021-2023

• Strategic Planning Working Group on Organization and Governance, 2019-2020

• Commission on Ethnicity, Race, and Equity, 2018-2023

• Board of Appeals, 2019-2022 (Chair, 2020-2022)

• Agenda Committee, 2017-2019

• Policy Committee on Lectures and Cultural Events, 2014-15

• First-Year Advisor, 2014-15, 2016-17, 2018-19, 2020-2021, 2022-2023, 2023-2024

• Senior Honors Thesis Advisor:

  • "“You’re having a kid now?”: On the Moral Permissibility of Procreation Amidst a Climate Crisis," Wen Li Yau '24

  • "Promising and the Normative Landscape of Relationships,"  Audrey Powers '20

  • "A Theory of Intellectual Property for Software," Stacey Kim '19

  • "The Values of Architecture,"  Angela Sun '17

  • "Speciesism: What is it? What should we do about it?" Adrienne Takaoka '15

    Berkeley:

• Committee on Student Conduct and Community Standards, 2008-2013

• Student Worker's Union, UAW Local 2865, departmental steward 2011-2013

• Undergraduate Student Learning Goals Assessment, researcher, 2011-2012 (compensated)

• Executive Vice-Chancellor and Provost's Task Force on Student Conduct, 2010-2011

• Reading Group on Jonathan Dancy's "Ethics Without Principles," organizer, Fall 2010

• Student Affairs Committee, Academic Senate, 2007-2009

• Department Colloquium Series, organizer, 2008-2009 (compensated)

• Richard Wollheim Society (graduate student presentation group), organizer, 2007-2008

    Profession:

• Philosophy in an Inclusive Key Summer Institute (PIKSI)-Boston, Member of the Board, 2016-present

• Peer reviewer for Ethics, Philosophical Studies; Journal of Political Philosophy; Utilitas; Theoria; Journal of Social Philosophy; Res Philosophica; Journal of Applied Philosophy; Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism; Philosophia; Ergo; Philosophical Quarterly; Philosopher’s Imprint; Estetika; Journal of the American Philosophical Association; Dialogue; British Journal of Aesthetics; Ethics, Policy, & Environment; The Australasian Journal of Philosophy; American Political Science Review; Philosophy, Politics, & Economics; Contemporary Aesthetics; Journal of Ethics; Analysis; Techné; Oxford University Press; Broadview Press; European Research Council; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Leverhulme Trust; American Council of Learned Societies

Professional Affiliations:

• American Philosophical Association

• American Society for Aesthetics

• Association of Critical Heritage Studies