The Global Center for Advanced Studies is honored to interview Professor Michael O’Rourke.

Q: How would you describe your research interests?

Michael O’Rourke [M O’R]: I would describe my research interests as extremely promiscuous, a kind of theoretical ADHD. I’ve published mostly on queer theory, deconstruction, speculative realism, object oriented ontology, feminist theory, psychoanalysis so those are the fields I generally occupy. But I don’t see myself as belonging to any discipline or area of scholarly expertise, whatever that might mean. In general what I try to do in my work is to stage unlikely encounters (Deleuze would say “unnatural alliances”) between thinkers or ideas or schools of thought that we might think of as incompatible. Sometimes these staged encounters work and sometimes they don’t. But in every case I think they are worth trying out.

Q: How did you get interested in theory?

M O’R: As an undergraduate…