- My projects start from a question: What lessons can be drawn from History and Philosophy to address our pressing problems?
- My research and teaching sits at the intersection of history, philosophy (ethics and politics) and education. As a Historian who specializes in American History, I use history as a site to explore and understand issues of leadership and strategy. As a Philosopher, I bring tools and critical analysis to public policy problems and issues facing organizations and institutions.
- My experience with the COVID -19 pandemic reframed my trajectory, like it did with many. For decades, my college teaching attended to American History, Political Science, and Philosophy. After lockdown I pivoted to study philosophy of care. Along with the ethics, politics, and economics of care, my courses focus on philosophy and/of education and the place of humor in our lives. I lead a seminar on Philosophy and Humor. This course has been the most requested course in the Division of Social Studies at Bard College, where I currently teach. “Socrates walks into philosophy class and says…” This seminar introduces philosophy while it models and encourages critical thinking practices by a study of philosophical issues related to laughter, comedy, and humor. Historical and contemporary philosophical theories of humor as well as the psychological, political, and moral dimensions of humor sits at the core of the inquiry. The seminar explores jokes, the absurd, the forms and types of humor, as well as the possibilities of humor as a tool of personal, organizational, and political transformation. Examples from the visual, performing, and printed arts run alongside our philosophical texts.
One core idea of my work as an educator, both before the pandemic and certainly after, is that intellectual growth and critical inquiry can run in parallel with mirth, respect for others, care, play, fun, experimentation, laughter, and joy. The dark, the sad, the tragic, the serious; they are always with us when we think and read and write about humor and care. What we laugh at and why is terribly serious and very important. Humor and Care are important philosophical topics. No joke.
- A new project, justice across the generations, addresses the moral and political status of children and youth. What would an global, intergenerational and intragenerational theory of justice look like? How might the when of theory figure in questions of distributive and formative justice? I explore how we can understand responsibilities and obligations to the natural environment and the human and non-human animals of the future. I am interested in how we might best support children in times of war and crisis. The project tries to construct concepts can be brought to bear to understand moral and political issues of the past, present, and future. Future work will focus on how do the demands of justice and care function in individual lives and in sustainable societies.
One of the things that has always interested me is what makes people interested in the things, the ideas, and the projects they pursue. To that end, I am interested in public service (I was a scout), discourse ethics, (I was a debater), philosophy of care, (I am a husband, father, son, friend, philosopher, etc.), classical and contemporary theories of citizenship, and ethical issues in society, (I believe citizenship is both a noun and a verb).