I gained my PhD in environmental philosophy at the University of Manchester in 1997, where my thesis tackled the issue of the value of nature by reference to historical understanding of the roots of modernity and to the epistemological framework offered by the classical American pragmatism of William James. With a background in the history of ideas in moral and political philosophy as well as in literature, my interests span widely across disciplinary boundaries. I am the reviews editor and a futures section co-editor of the international interdisciplinary academic journal Organization and Environment as well as being a member of the International Society for Environmental Ethics, the American Philosophical Association, the Society for Advancement of American Philosophy, and the William James Society. However, not all my life has been spent in academia, and my past employment outside higher education has included spells of work in local government, printing, catering, the British civil service and manual labor. My time outside the academy has strengthened my belief in the general worth of philosophy, and I believe strongly in taking philosophy outside the ivory tower as well as operating within the conventional teaching and research environment.

My primary research interests center upon the environmental turn in political and moral philosophy but extend into the philosophical mainstream, particularly in relation to the history of ideas, and I am especially concerned with ideas of freedom, nature and the good in the liberal and pragmatist traditions, most notably as manifested in the thought of John Locke, J.S Mill and William James. A significant part of this enquiry involves connecting up characteristically North American themes in environmental ethics to European concerns in environmental politics, for I believe we are currently at a time of significant cross-pollination of these traditions, and my own research interests, centered around the character and value of nature, involve connecting up both sides of these debates. Currently I am particularly concerned with the connections between literature and green political thought on both sides of the Atlantic, especially as manifested in the utopian/dystopian tradition, and with the prospects for greater harmony between typically European and North American concerns in this area. As part of this, I was main editor of a new Routledge compilation volume, Contemporary Environmental Politics: From Margins to Mainstream, published in 2006, and am working on the manuscript of a monograph book, Nature, Liberty and Dystopia, in which I explore some key conceptual linkages between nature and liberty across a wider and more interdisciplinary frame of reference. My past publication record includes 2 co-edited books, diverse articles and over 40 reviews in various journals. Outside formal study I enjoy country walks and wildlife, current affairs, literature, a variety of types of music, good food and drink, pleasant company and the occasional game of chess.

My recent publications include:

"Contemporary Environmental Politics: From Margins to Mainstream," Routledge,, 2006, Edited with John Barry and Andrew Dobson

"Sustainability, Democracy and Pragmatism: Bryan Norton's Philosophy of Ecosystem Management," Organization and Environment,, Vol. 20, No. 3, September 2007, pp. 386-92

"The Open Society and its Energies: Channelling Environmental Concern in the USA and Western Europe," Capitalism, Nature, Socialism,, Vol. 16, No. 2, June 2005, pp.115-20

"Nature and Human Liberty: The Golden Country in George Orwell’s 1984 and an Alternative Conception of Human Freedom," Organization and Environment,, Vol. 17, No. 1, March 2004, pp.76-98

"A Space for Place: Pragmatic Naturalism, Particularity and the Politics of Nature," Environmental Politics,, Vol. 11, No. 3, Autumn 2002, pp.168-73

"Hubris, Humility, History and Harmony: Human Belonging and the Uses of Nature," Environmental Politics,, Vol. 11, No. 2, Summer 2002, pp.174-80

"Patriotism, Environmentalism and the Circles of Ethics: A Response to Cafaro," International Society for Environmental Ethics Newsletter,, Vol. 12, No. 4, Winter 2001, pp.9-11