08/2018 – 12/2019
MA Classical Reception, King's College London
Thesis: The Reception of Lucretius' 'De Rerum Natura' in the Poetry of Madame Deshoulières

05/2014
BA History, Mount St. Mary's University

Aesthetic of Salon Didactic and the Toleration of Epicurean Atomism

This project explores the reception of ancient materialist philosophy in the intellectual and literary culture of the late 18th century in France—particularly atomism, materialism, and their implications of atheism in the Epicurean school of thought. The study is centered on one salon network wherein such radical philosophical ideas were debated, refined, and disseminated. By examining how particular thinkers engaged with and adapted classical materialist philosophy, this project seeks to illuminate how these ideas were shaped by the social and aesthetic context in which they were confronted. The ultimate goals are to trace how concepts traditionally perceived as controversial—such as the rejection of an immortal soul or the replacement of a deistic infinite with an infinite material universe— were mediated by an intellectual culture that valued both rational inquiry and aesthetic sensibility; and to investigate how the aesthetic of salon didactic made palatable such a discourse. This aesthetic will be investigated to understand how it might serve as a palliative for the dissonance caused by controversial ideas, particularly in a time of such complex paradigm shift.

2021
‘The Reception of "De Rerum Natura"  in the Poetry of Madame Deshoulières'  in Studies in the History of Philosophy, Vol. 12 No. 3 (2021)  http://dx.doi.org/10.12775/szhf.2021.015