I teach courses in comparative politics, American foreign policy, and international relations at the Catholic University of America. My courses take seriously the great-books tradition while engaging with contemporary scholarship and policy debates. I believe that understanding politics requires training in history, philosophy, and theory alongside the tools of social science.
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Courses at Catholic University of America
POL112: Introduction to Comparative Politics
An introduction to the analysis of politics from a comparative perspective. Topics include fundamental concepts in politics; democratic, non-democratic, and hybrid regimes; party and voting systems; and institutions shaping political processes. Students read classic texts alongside contemporary comparative work.
POL322: Empire or Republic? Ideas and Practice in US Foreign Policy
Co-taught with Fellows at CUA’s Center for the Study of Statesmanship, with guest lecturers from the academic, political, and policy worlds. The course explores the development of American foreign policy through the history of ideas — connecting questions of human nature and the moral life to practical questions of international affairs, constitutionalism, and the paradoxes of American exceptionalism. Counts toward American, World, and Theory concentrations in Politics.
POL433: Russian Foreign Policy
An historical overview and detailed examination of Russian foreign policy across regional and functional dimensions. Students engage with both the substance of Russian foreign policy and the competing analytical frameworks — realist, constructivist, civilizational — that policymakers and scholars use to interpret Russian behavior. The course draws on primary sources in translation alongside contemporary scholarship.
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Intensive Seminars & Programs
The Machine Has No Tradition
A week-long intensive seminar on the philosophy of technology, co-taught each summer with Nathan Pinkoski and Mary Harrington at Harvard. For graduate students and advanced undergraduates, young professionals, and early-career scholars. The seminar takes its title from the observation that modern technology is uniquely self-justifying and tradition-dissolving — and asks what this means for politics, family, faith, and the good life. Past guest speakers include Matthew Crawford, Andy Crouch, and Erica Bachiochi.
The Constitutional Fellows Program
Instruction in CUA’s program for congressional staffers and policy professionals on the constitutional foundations of American government and statecraft. The program draws on the Federalist Papers, Anti-Federalist writings, and the broader tradition of American political thought.
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For Prospective Graduate Students
I am not currently accepting doctoral advisees. If you are a graduate student interested in my research areas — military adaptation, the political economy of technology, American grand strategy — I am happy to discuss research informally. Please email me with a brief description of your project and how it connects to my work.