Working toward an interdisciplinary definition of aesthetics, my dissertation considers how the aesthetic construction of the art object can be viewed as a response to generalizable problems of subjectivity and consciousness that arose in post-enlightenment intellectual culture. I bring together topics of eighteenth-century philosophy, romantic poetry, and theories of artistic practice in order to demonstrate that each of these domains has a properly aesthetic dimension -- understood as a mode of inquiry and reflection which is vitally concerned with problems of autonomy of the subject, productivity of self-consciousness, and reflective contradiction. This work is broadly concerned with how the practical or pedagogical dimension to aesthetic reflection -- grounded in the making of and critical reflection upon exemplary art-works themselves -- is often in tension with the theoretical conceptualization of the category. Understanding this tension as the proper site of aesthetic investigation makes the category more useful for thinking about interdisciplinary work in the humanities.

Committee: Michael Witmore (Chair), Jon Klancher, Jeffrey Williams, Daniel Selcer (Duquesne University)

"Images and Anxieties in 19th Century Landscape Painting: Pittsburgh and Allegheny County." 3Rivers 2nd Nature Annual Rpt. STUDIO For Creative Inquiry, Carnegie Mellon University, December 2001.

"Making Art and Making Theory: Comparatist Pedagogy in Aesthetics," American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies. Richmond, VA. Spring 2009.

"The Translatable Subject in 'Le Dictionnaire des Intraduisibles (Vocabulaire Européen des Philosophies)'," Modern Language Association, "Translation in the 21rst Century: What Gets Found." San Francisco, CA. December 2008.

"Exemplary Dejection: Poets Reading Kant and developing Aesthetic Pedagogy," Modern Language Association, Poetry Discussion Panel: "Poetry as Pedagogy." San Francisco, CA. December 2008.

"Every Poet His Own Aristotle: The Critical Subject and Creative Voice in Child Harold's Pilgrimage," Byron and Modernity, Vancouver, Canada. Fall 2007.

"Criticism Against Itself: Reynolds' Discourses and Subjectivity," Third International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities. Cambridge, UK. Summer 2005.

"Kant and the Problems of Criticism," Canadian Society for Aesthetics Annual Meeting. Manitoba, Canada. Spring 2004.

"Adorno, Bloch and Contemporary Aesthetic Agency," Aesthetics and Politics: Society for European Philosophy Annual Meeting. Essex, UK. Fall 2003.

"Utopia and Art in Adorno's Aesthetics," Graduate Student Colloquium Carnegie Mellon University. Pittsburgh, PA. Spring 2003.

"Shelley and the problem of Idealism," Graduate Student Colloquium Department of English Carnegie Mellon University. Pittsburgh, PA. Spring 2003.

English 76101, Interpretation and Argument: Debates in Art and Culture: Politics or Morality? (Spring 2003, Fall 2002)

English 76101, Interpretation and Argument: Reading War (Summer 1, 2002)

English 76101, Interpretation and Argument: Sex, Scandal and the Politics of Representation (Fall 2001, Spring 2002)

English 76101, Interpretation and Argument: Work and Death: Sociobiology from Germinal to Fresh(Spring 2000)