I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Western (effective
July 2012). I received my PhD from the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University,
where I wrote a dissertation titled “Aristotle’s Theory of Decision (prohairesis)” under
the supervision of Terry Irwin (2006).
I came to Western as an Assistant Professor in the fall of 2005. In the 2012-13 academic
year I will be on research leave in Oxford, where I have been elected Visiting Scholar at
Corpus Christi College in Michaelmas term. I will also be affiliated with St.
Catherine's College. I was also granted research leave from Western in the spring of
2012, and spent that time as well in Oxford, where my husband M. Y. Nawaz is a
postgraduate student in the Faculty of History. In the 2007/8 academic year, I held a
Lectureship in the Faculty of Philosophy at Cambridge University and a Fellowship at
Trinity College, Cambridge.
My research has centered on questions at the intersection of Aristotle’s ethics and moral
psychology. Recent publications include “Deliberation as Inquiry: Aristotle’s Alternative
to the Presumption of Open Alternatives”, Philosophical Review (2011), "Dirtying
Aristotle's Hands? The Analysis of Mixed Acts in Nicomachean Ethics III, 1",
Phronesis (2007), and "The Private Parts of Animals – Aristotle on the Teleology of
Sexual Difference", Phronesis (2008). I have recently completed a paper titled “The
Will – Origin of the Notion in Aristotle’s Thought”, which will appear in a special issue
of the journal Antiquorum Philosophia, as well as a paper titled “Deliberation and What
is Up to Us – Practical Knowledge and the Boundaries of Responsibility in
Aristotle". In the first I question Michael Frede’s rationale for denying that
Aristotle has a notion of the will in his posthumously published Sather Lectures, A Free
Will: Origins of the Notion in Ancient Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2011). In the second, I examine the notion of "to eph’hêmin" in the context of
Aristotle’s theory of practical reasoning. My paper “The Nicomachean Ethics in
Hellenistic Philosophy” is on its way to appearing in Jon Miller (ed.), The Reception of
Aristotle’s Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). "Aristotle on
Principles in Ethics" will be published in a volume of papers I am editing with my
colleague here at Western, Devin Henry, titled Bridging the Gap between Aristotle's
Science and Ethics. The volume is under contract with Cambridge University Press.
I plan to spend my sabbatical leave completing a monograph that examines Aristotle’s
theory of practical reason and rational motivation. It is tentatively titled Aristotle’s
Theory of Decision and its Legacy.
In October 2011, I organized the conference "Friendship in the Aristotelian
Tradition" with my Ph.D. student Kristina Biniek. You can find a program in the
links listed in the right-hand column. We hope to publish a collection of papers based on
the conference.
My work was briefly but joyfully interrupted by the birth of my daughter Noor Andrea on
February 17, 2008. Noor’s current playtime interests range from Plato to Play-Doh – the
first exclusively as sketching paper, the second because it is the ultimate,
undifferentiated stuff for the ultimate, Platonic demiurge.
Before arriving at Cornell on a Fulbright Fellowship in 2000, I was a lecturer in the
Department of Philosophy at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in my
native city Trondheim, where I also earned a Cand. mag. degree (B.A.-equivalent) and a
Cand. philol. degree (M.A.- equivalent) in the late 90’s. Trondheim is a beautiful
Medieval city at 63,4º North. In Canada, that is equivalent to the latitude of Iqaluit,
Nunavut (so, north of the Hudson Bay), though unlike Iqaluit, Trondheim benefits from the
balmy Gulf Stream. It is a pleasant place, if a little dark in winter.
Forthcoming Publications
Articles
Forthcoming Book
Book Chapters
Reviews
