I am fortunate to be an educator. Wherever I have taught–at Hamilton College, Princeton University, and the University of Notre Dame–I have offered courses in a wide range of disciplines, from the social sciences to the humanities. I have taught at every level of university education, from first-year seminars to large lecture courses, senior seminars, and graduate courses.

I have taught “Public/Private/Internet” to students in Notre Dame’s computer applications major. I frequently offer “An Introduction to World Politics” to students in the First-year of Studies as well as two seminars, “Ten Images of Hell in the Twentieth-First Century” and “The Dream of Communism.”   I also teach “The Rise and Fall of World Communism.”  Much of the inspiration for this course comes from travels throughout the communist or (barely) post-communist world in the 2000s, such as Cuba, Vietnam, China, Belarus, Russia, and North Korea. My interest in communism goes back much earlier  to my first visits to East Berlin, Prague, and Budapest in 1973.  I  also offer a graduate course “Philosophy and Dictatorship” which draws on these experiences and challenges me to synthesize the fields of comparative politics and political theory.

I have been fortunate to receive a number of teaching awards.  At Princeton, I was named the Robert C. Root Preceptor.  At Notre Dame, I have received teaching awards across the university, including the Sheedy Award of the College of Arts and Letters, the Madden Award of the First-year of Studies, the Kaneb Award, the Kellogg Institute Mentorship Award, and the Joyce Award (twice).

As you can see from the most recent links on my Course Page, I rely exclusively upon self-designed web-based syllabi for all of my courses.  No trees were killed–or at least not many–in the process of teaching these classes! I have integrated many of the photos on my Photo Page into the lectures for these classes.