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.

Here is an interview I did.

I have a substack I update occasionally here.

Email me: berstler@mit.edu