Department of Religious Studies

I have published ten books, and have two in progress.

My first book, Understanding Asian Philosophy (Bloomsbury, 2014), is an introduction to ethical traditions in early China and India, covering Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist, and Hindu ideas.

Theories of Truth in Chinese Philosophy (Rowman and Littlefield International, 2015) is an investigation of the concept of truth in early Chinese philosophy through the Han Dynasty, in which I argue for the existence of a diverse array of conceptions of truth, culminating with pluralist views in the Han.

Astronomy in the Ancient World (Springer, 2016) gives an account of the astronomy and cosmology of the ancient Americas, Asia, and the West, arguing for the centrality of astronomy in the development of philosophical systems and underlying worldviews in these cultures.

Philosophy of the Ancient Maya (Lexington Books, 2017) develops an account of precolonial Maya Philosophy, using available texts, anthropological work, and analogical comparative frameworks reading the Maya tradition through early Chinese (particularly Daoist) thought.

The Philosophical Thought of Wang Chong (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) is the first full-length English language study of the Eastern Han Dynasty philosopher Wang Chong, covering the central ideas of his thought, collected in the text Lunheng, including his critical philosophical method and its application, naturalism, his theory of allotment (ming), and his pluralist theory of truth.

My first edited volume, The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Early Chinese Ethics and Political Philosophy (Bloomsbury, 2019), collects articles on key thinkers and topics in these areas, with two sections covering historical and comparative approaches.

Transcendence and Non-Naturalism in Early Chinese Thought (Bloomsbury, 2020), co-authored with Joshua R. Brown (Theology, Mount St. Mary’s University), is the first of three planned volumes on non-naturalist views in early China, in which we argue against some of the dominant readings of early Chinese thought that characterize the tradition as a naturalistic alternative to Western thought. In this volume, we demonstrate the existence of numerous conceptions of transcendence and transcendent entities in early Chinese texts, drawing parallels to a number of strikingly similar texts in medieval European philosophy. We argue that naturalistic readings of early China often overlook key features of both Chinese and Western thought.

The Dao of Madness (Oxford University Press, 2021) is an exploration of the concept of kuang (madness) in Confucian, Daoist, syncretist, and medical texts in early China, and the development of this concept from early moralizing discussions to its “medicalization” in the early Han Dynasty.

An Introduction to Mesoamerican Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2023) introduces the philosophical traditions of the Maya, Nahua (Aztecs), Mixtecs, Zapotecs, and others, focussing in particular on their treatment of language, truth, time, creation, personhood, knowledge, and morality. 

Myth and Identity in the Martial Arts: Creating the Dragon (Lexington Books, 2024) is on the link between mythology, narrative, and the construction of identity in the traditional Asian martial arts. I cover the history of the development of martial arts mythology and its purposes, grounding it in construction of narratives of self-conception, national, ethnic, religious, and others, rather than in methods or styles of fighting.

I am currently working on two books: 1) on conceptions of human creation of the cosmos in three philosophical traditions, and 2) on self and divinity in 19^th-20^th century black nationalist religion.