I am a PhD student and Graduate Teaching Assistant in the Department of Philosophy.

My doctoral thesis sets out a critical phenomenology of othering (the construction of subjects as other) by bringing key aspects of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of embodiment – particularly, the body schema, body image, and habituation – into conversation with first-person accounts of racialized, gendered, and ableized otherness and othering. In the dissertation, I present othering as both the exercising and effects of a particular kind of perceptual and interpretative practice that operates through (at least) four dimensions, namely spatiality, pathologisation, humiliation, and hyper- and invisibilisation.

Beyond my thesis, I am interested in the application of 20th-century European philosophy to contemporary social philosophy, particularly the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Michel Foucault, with my main areas of interest being the philosophy of disability, the emergence and normative force of social norms, and hermeneutic injustice and labour. I also have a research background in International Law and Human Rights Law and seek to maintain an interdisciplinary focus in all my research and professional endeavours.

Departmental Engagement

• Equality and Welfare Committee (EWC) - minorities and PGR representative since 2021. Submit your experiences and opinions about all things EDI and welfare via the anonymous feedback form hereLink opens in a new window.
• Warwick Continental Philosophy Conference (WCPC) - organising committee member and inclusivity officer 2023/2024.
• Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) - committee member from 2022-2024.
• Student Staff Liaison Committee (SSLC) - MAP representative 2023/24.
• Student Events Committee - committee member 2023/24.

Recent and Forthcoming Projects

Peer Reviewed

‘The Philosophy of Neurodiversity’ in Philosophy and Theory of Disability. Oxford Research Encyclopaedia in Disability Studies, Oxford University Press. With Robert Chapman; forthcoming.

Public Philosophy

Müller, C. (2021) "The Politics of Authenticity", Philosophy2u. Available hereLink opens in a new window.

Müller, C. (2020) "A Theory of Emptiness", Philosophy2u. Available hereLink opens in a new window.

Müller, C. (2020) "Quarantine, an Existential Perspective: A Self without Others", Philosophy2u. Available hereLink opens in a new window.

Talks and Presentations

December 2024: Against Merit: How Disabled Students Subvert Intelligence Essentialism. Philosophy of Disability and Social Change 5, BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY and the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford (UK).

September 2024: Conceptualising Autistic Embodiment: The Normative Body-Schema and Interpretative Registries of Neurominoritization. The British Society of Phenomenology Annual Conference, University of West England (UK)

July 2024: The Spatiality of Othering: A Crip Reading of Embodiment and the Phenomenology of Belonging. The Mind and Aristotelian Society Joint Session, Birmingham University (UK)

Previous Education & Languages

• LLM in International Law with International Human Rights Law, The University of Kent (2019-2020)
• BA(Hons) in Philosophy, The University of Kent (2016-2019)

English (native) French (CEFR A2)

Russian (CEFR A2) German (CEFR A1)