Writing
Current projects
Conversational implicature and cancelation
In which I argue that cancelation cannot serve as a test for conversational implicature, even though, contra Matt Weiner, all conversational implicatures are in fact cancelable.
In the final stages of revisions for a revise and resubmit. I swear it will be off my desk by the end of August if it kills me.
Conventions for illocutionary silencing
Catherine MacKinnon famously argues in favour of anti-pornography legislation on the grounds that pornography itself violates the right to free speech. Rae Langton and Jennifer Hornsby have defended MacKinnon’s claim by arguing that pornography prevents women from securing uptake for their attempted illocutionary acts and that this inability to secure uptake constitutes a form of silencing. I outline the problems with this analysis and present an alternative which focuses on competing and overriding conventions.
This was my spring/summer 2008 tour paper, delivered at the Pacific APA. the SEP, the CPA, and NASSP. I also have a related paper on kinds of illocutionary failure. These may end up as one paper in the end.
Heloise on love, marriage, and friendship
This is in the very beginning stages still. Essentially an examination of Heloise’s views as expressed in the love letters and personal letters.
Hustler and Tijuana bibles: desire and objectification in Watchmen
When Sally Jupiter shares the Tijuana bible devoted to Silk Spectre with her daughter, Laurie Juspeczyk responds with disgust, rejecting it as sexual objectification. Similar concerns arise in the conflict between the lesbian couple which erupts into violence over the purchasing of Hustler. Vilification of traditional expressions of male sexuality is explicit in the Watchmen; Laurie is clear and forceful, her mother apologetic, telling Laurie only that she can’t understand what it is like to have most of life behind rather than ahead of her. Moralizing male characters also express Laurie’s sentiments, especially Rorschach with his general contempt toward any expression of sexuality. However the 1980s, when the Watchmen appeared, was a time of intense conflict between anti-porn and sex-positive feminists, with the latter arguing that free sexual expression has positive benefits for women. Rarely does the Watchmen present only one side of any issue. In this presentation I trace the appearances of the sex-positive position in the Watchman; finding it perhaps surprisingly in the depiction of Laurie’s own relationships as well as in Sally’s experiences, the interactions of the lesbian couple, and the relationship of Rorschach’s therapist with his wife.
In progress for delivery at the 2008 Dragon*Con Academic Mini-Conference as part of a panel entitled New scholarship on Watchmen. It may well grow into something quite different afterward.
Publications
2007. Pragmatics of empty names. Dialogue. 46. 663-81. Preprint and bibtex entry
2004. What are Beall and Restall pluralists about? Australasian Journal of Philosophy. 82. 409-20. Bibtex entry
2000. Did Duns Scotus invent possible worlds semantics? Australasian Journal of Philosophy. 78. 196-212. Bibtex entry
