PhD, Philosophy, University of Essex, 1988;
MPhil, University of Nice, 1987;
BA, University of Essex, 1985

As a philosopher, I am interested in everything. But I have particular in modern Continental philosophy. But I have written on a wide variety of themes and authors, most recently on ethical and political theory, the relation between philosophy and poetry, the nature of humour. At present, I am working on Rousseau, Heidegger, Ibsen, Beckett, Pessoa and Levinas.

• Philosophy and Tragedy
• Theories of the Political
• Heidegger’s Being and Time
• Rousseau on Politics and Life

• Continental Philosophy. A very short introduction, Oxford UP, 2001.
• On Humour, Routledge, 2002.
• Very Little…Almost Nothing, Routledge, 2004.
• Things Merely Are – philosophy in the poetry of Wallace Stevens, Routledge, 2005.
• Infinitely Demaning – A Political Ethics, Verso, 2007.

Continental philosophy; philosophy and literature; ethics and politics; psychoanalysis.

I am editor of numerous book series, most recently How to Read (Norton) and I have been visiting professor recently at Notre Dame, Sydney University, Cardozo Law School and the University of Oslo.