He is the author or editor of six earlier books, most recently Hannah Arendt and Politics (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), co-authored with philosopher Maria Robaszkiewicz, and The Emergence of Illiberalism (Routledge, 2020), co-edited with political scientist Boris Vormann. His other recent work includes Plato and the Moving Image, a volume he co-edited with Shai Biderman (Brill, 2019) and The Parthenon and Liberal Education (SUNY, 2018), co-authored with art historian Geoff Lehman, which investigates the Parthenon as an education in the liberal arts.

Michael’s research connects closely with the teaching and mentoring he will be doing in Political Science. He is particularly excited to be teaching the course POLS-Y249 “Religion, Politics, and Public Policy,” focused on the theme of “Secularism and Postsecularism.” This course offers a comparative and historical perspective on the question of freedom of religion (or freedom from religion) as a basic commitment of liberal democracy. He also teaches courses on topics such “The Politics of Identity,” where students explore the politicization of identity questions from both a descriptive and a normative perspective—looking at differences between Anglo-American practices and Continental Europe, and comparing those with multicultural societies in the MENA region and Asia.