I am an assistant professor of philosophy at MIT. I think about the structure of everyday interactions. I have a particular interest in “pretensey” conversations–those involving subterfuge (successful and unsuccessful), polite fictions, and blatant bullshitting. I like H.P. Grice, Georg Simmel, and Erving Goffman.
My book, The Philosophy of Erving Goffman, is currently under contract with Routledge. To my knowledge, this is the first book-length treatment of Goffman by an analytic philosopher, for analytic philosophers.
I am currently the co-director of the PPE Society’s Working Group on the Ethical Limits of Academic Inquiry.
Here is an interview I did.
Email me: berstler@mit.edu