Political Theorist
Research Areas:
18-20th Century Modern Political Thought (Rousseau/Tocqueville/Bellah)
Civil Religion; Moral Foundations of Liberal Democracy
Political Scale; International Political Thought
Welcome!
I am a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Cornerstone Institute for Civic Thought at Purdue University. I received my Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Houston, specializing in modern and contemporary political theory. My research examines the transformation of civil religion in modern democracies, focusing on how ideas of collective faith and moral unity are reshaped by processes of privatization and individualism in modern society.
My dissertation, Privatized Civil Religion in America after Rousseau, traces a genealogy of civil religion from Jean-Jacques Rousseau through Alexis de Tocqueville to Robert N. Bellah. It argues that what Rousseau conceived as a public moral framework has been gradually privatized in American life—redirected from civic virtue to personal interest. Through close textual analysis and historical contextualization, my work bridges political theory, sociology, and American political thought to understand the moral foundations of democracy in a post-religious age.
Beyond the dissertation, my research continues to center on the political thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. I am currently developing a paper on The Government of Poland, where Rousseau reimagines the problem of scale in modern politics. Before my doctoral studies, I completed a master’s thesis on Rousseau’s political thought from the perspective of International Political Thought.
My work has been presented at national conferences including the American Political Science Association (APSA), the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA), the Southern Political Science Association (SPSA), and the Association for Political Theory (APT), and has been supported by the Cullen Fellowship and the Korean American Scholarship Foundation (KASF).
I am always happy to connect with colleagues, collaborators, and students interested in questions of religion, democracy, and modernity.