Tim completed his PhD at the Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics, University of Brighton in 2017. His thesis explored themes of visibility in the work of Jacques Rancière, Judith Butler and Adriana Cavarero. He concluded by examining how this emphasis on visibility as ethically and politically important is challenged by forms of fugitivity in the context of the transatlantic slave trade and Black radical traditions, as articulated in the scholarship of Saidiya Hartman and Fred Moten.

Since then, Tim's research has evolved to focus on the concept of 'apprehension' as a mode of attending to another's uniqueness that goes beyond representation or recognition. This work is grounded in continental philosophy and feminist thought, extending to engage with scholars in U.S. Black studies and Black feminist thought.

Tim has taught at several universities in south-east England and has experience as a medical science journalist. Currently, he is a Lecturer in Cultural Competency Education in the Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities at King's College London, where he teaches cultural competency modules and contributes to clinical programmes in the area of cultural competency.

Research interests and PhD supervision

• Uniqueness, relationality, and vulnerability in politics, ethics, ontology, and cultural competency.
• Continental philosophy and contemporary critical theory.
• U.S. Black studies and Black feminist thought.
• Fugitive and wayward practices of refusal in political theory.
• Intersections of sustainability education and cultural competency.
• Pedagogic scholarship on vulnerability, decentring grading, and emancipatory education, with a focus on Rancière's work.

Tim's current research focuses on two main projects. The first is a monograph developing the concept of apprehension, provisionally titled "Caring Beyond Recognition: Ten Theses on Apprehension". The second examines the intersection of Black critical theory and European critical thought, focusing on the work of Fred Moten and Jacques Rancière, under the working title "Determined Indeterminacies: Singularity and Blackness as Antipolitical Falsums". He welcomes PhD applications in areas related to his research interests. Tim is currently co-supervising a PhD student working on Gilles Deleuze's notion of immanence and its relationship to anarchist thought and practice.

Selected publications

• "On the Politics of the Who: Cavarero, Nancy, Rancière." In Political Bodies: Writings on Adriana Cavarero's Political Thought, edited by Paula Landerreche Cardillo and Rachel Silverbloom, 59–84. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2024.
• "The Voice of Care: On the Informality of Uniqueness." Journal of Italian Philosophy 7 (2024): 145–161.
• "Mimetic Apprehension: Care, Inclination and the Weather of Antiblackness." Critical Horizons 24, no. 2 (2023): 180–194. https://doi.org/10.1080/14409917.2023.2233113.
• "Apprehending Care in the Flesh: Reading Cavarero with Spillers." Diacritics 49, no. 3 (2021): 6–27. https://doi.org/10.1353/dia.2021.0027.
• "Toward a Fugitive Politics: Arendt, Rancière, Hartman." Cultural Critique 110 (2021): 1–48. https://doi.org/10.5749/culturalcritique.110.2021.0001.

Teaching

Tim's approach to teaching emphasises practising vulnerability, and he is influenced by Jacques Rancière's work on intellectual emancipation. He argues that practising vulnerability, when understood non-instrumentally, can foster more liberatory classroom environments. His classes focus on dialogic conversation that he facilitates, starting from the assumption, following Rancière, that everyone has an equal capacity to understand the material under discussion. This approach to practising vulnerability involves acknowledging intellectual limits, speaking from situated standpoints, and maintaining a modest yet effective pedagogy that celebrates the situated, everyday practices of care that form the basis of learning communities. Tim sees trust as a crucial connection between vulnerability and Rancière's understanding of intellectual equality.

Expertise and public engagement

Tim is an expert on the work of Adriana Cavarero and co-edited the book Toward a Feminist Ethics of Nonviolence (Fordham University Press, 2021). This volume brings together Cavarero, Judith Butler, and Bonnie Honig to debate Cavarero's call for a postural ethics of nonviolence and a sociality rooted in bodily interdependence. He co-organised the conference "Giving Life To Politics: The Work of Adriana Cavarero" at the University of Brighton in June 2017. In November 2021, Tim delivered a keynote lecture at the conference "Mimetic Inclinations: Gender, Philosophy, and Politics with Adriana Cavarero" at the Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven. His work has been published in numerous journals including Diacritics, Cultural Critique, and Critical Horizons.

Tim currently leads two internally funded projects at King's. The "Critical Intersections: Navigating Western and Non-Western Intellectual Traditions" project explores ethical ways to foster dialogue between critical traditions marginalised by the West and those that emerge from, but work against, Western thought. It focuses specifically on traditions that critique Western ontoepistemologies, aiming to foster productive exchanges between diverse philosophical perspectives. The "Connecting Education for Sustainability and Cultural Competency at King's" project examines how sustainability education and cultural competency education intersect, seeking to develop innovative approaches to these crucial areas of contemporary higher education.