Research

Aristotle on oviparous generation

My main project examines Aristotle’s theory of reproduction by egg-laying: how he applies his general explanation for how a new ensouled being is generated out of some bodily fluids to his empirical observations of egg-laying animals (ovipara) like birds and fish, primarily in Generation of Animals. I show that a better grasp of the account of oviparous generation allows us to make progress not only on interpretive debates about Aristotle’s embryology—e.g. about its sexism, its causal framework for natural change—but also on questions about the metaphysics and politics of pregnancy and procreation, the relationship of the human to the nonhuman animal, and the role of science in maintaining unjust socio-political hierarchies.

Published & forthcoming

  • "Mules and Other Monsters: Hybridity in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals." Phronesis 71 (2026): 52-89. [online publication here]

  • "Wind-Eggs in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals." Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 66 (forthcoming). [penultimate draft here]

    • Awarded the British Society for the History of Philosophy’s 2024 Graduate Essay Prize.

  • "Eggs as External Wombs in Aristotle’s Embryology." In C. Blanco, S.M. Connell, and N. Roggo-van Luijn (eds.), Weaving Life in Ancient Science: The Epistemology of Embryology (Springer, forthcoming).

Papers in progress

  • A paper on the scala naturae in Aristotle’s account of incubation practices (in progress).

  • A paper on softness as a moral defect in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (draft).

  • A paper on body parts, and the possibility of discontinuous ones, in Aristotle’s biology and mereology (in progress).

  • A paper on reproductive hylomorphism as a viable interpretation of Aristotle’s embryology (draft).

  • A paper on the role of women and family abolitionism in Plato’s Republic (draft).

Book reviews etc.

  • Review of S.M. Connell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Biology (Cambridge, 2021). Journal of Hellenic Studies 143 (2023): 320-22.

  • Review of M. Leunissen, Aristotle’s Gynecology: Facts, Evidence, and Early Medicine (Oxford, 2025). Metascience 35:35 (2026).

  • Review of S.M. Connell (ed.), Aristotle’s “Parts of Animals”: A Critical Guide (Cambridge, 2026). HOPOS (forthcoming).

Please email me at norahw [at] mit [dot] edu if you’re interested in drafts or discussion of these projects. 

Illustrating Aristotle

I include my own illustrations in my work, which I find helpful both for thinking through problems and for explaining ideas. It makes sense to me that visuals would be useful for discussing Aristotle's views about living bodies in particular: he himself frequently refers to diagrams and to illustrations of dissections, which have not survived along with the text, in his natural philosophy, as well as throughout the wider corpus.

Some animals featured in my published and forthcoming articles.