Patrick Fessenbecker is an assistant professor in the Program for Cultures, Civilizations, and Ideas at Bilkent University. He is the author of Reading Ideas in Victorian Literature: Literary Content as Artistic Experience, forthcoming from Edinburgh University Press. His academic research has appeared in journals like New Literary History, English Literary History, The British Journal for the History of Philosophy, and Victorian Studies among others, and he has also written public scholarship for venues like the Stanford Arcade, the Academe blog, and most recently Aesthetics for Birds. His research addresses a variety of topics in the interdisciplinary spaces between literature, philosophy, and the history of ideas, with a particular eye towards the complexities of human moral life. Not least among those complexities are the varieties of duties we have towards those we love, a normative arena he is currently exploring personally with the help of his wife and two children. He lives in Ankara, Turkey, and enjoys learning the language and complex history of his new country in his spare time. Other interests include a life-long fascination with fantasy fiction, playing the guitar, and a love-hate relationship with the board game Diplomacy.