I live in Detroit, where I teach philosophy and direct the Honors Program at the University of Detroit Mercy. I earned my Master's and Ph.D. at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. I have also taught at several schools in Pittsburgh and Florida.
I regularly teach introductory philosophy, ethics, social and political philosophy, person and society, and media critique. I have has also taught thematic courses on friendship, the good life, appearance and reality, and have directed readings on Husserl, Heidegger, Nietzsche, existentialism, continental philosophy, postmodernism, the phenomenology of place, and the topic of dwelling. My scholarly research has centered on the phenomenological method and the problem of expression, and I have published articles on Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre. In addition, I am interested in the actual practice of phenomenology, and have undertaken several investigations of the experience of media, lived space and the body. I also maintain an abiding interest in social and political questions.I earned my Bachelor's degree at the smallest liberal arts and Great Books school in the nation, Shimer College, now located in Chicago. As a senior at Shimer, I studied and lived for a year in Oxford, England. My wife and I like cities and like to travel, and we have visited some beautiful places, including London, Dublin, Leuven, Amsterdam, Maastricht, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Freiburg, Florence, Milan, Helsinki and Prague.
Until January 20th, 2001 I used to be a regular listener of National Public Radio, though I still think This American Life is one of the most wondrous hours on radio anywhere in the world. These days I tend to listen to the the local oldies station and reminisce about my dissolute youth.I tend to take a pretty close look at the New York Times Online, Talking Points Memo and the Progress Report every day, and I also occasionally look at Informed Comment. I also enjoy the satiric commentary of Jon Swift and A Tiny Revolution. When I have the chance I read The Nation, the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books recreationally.