I am studying the role of orthodoxy in theory construction. That is, I am researching the extent to which having fidelity to an intellectual master is necessary to produce new theoretical knowledge. I am taking Jacques Lacan's famous ‘Return to Freud' as a model of the sort of productive dogmatism by which all psychoanalytic (and much philosophical) theory is developed. The aim of this project is to challenge conventional modes of theoretical development (i.e., the testing, refuting, combining, etc. of hypotheses) and affirm in their place the transferential relationship between hysteric students and their allegiance to their master as the necessary ingredient in the development of psychoanalytic and philosophical ideas.
I have a bachelor's degree in psychology from York University, Toronto. I also have a master's degree in psychoanalytic studies from the University of Essex, England. My master's thesis, 'Losing Face: Battling the Lamella for the Skull', explored the relationship between subjectivity and the human skull by way of Lacan's theory of the lamella, competing theories of death drive, vanitas paintings, and the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat. I am currently a Ph.D. candidate at the CRMEP at Kingston University.