Teaching is foundational to a productive scholarly life. I have served as “lead instructor” on numerous undergraduate seminar-style courses at the University of Chicago and now at the University of Amsterdam, undertaking all course design, grading, and instruction. I also have significant experience teaching and advising M.A. students from all subfields of political science. I am prepared to teach courses in contemporary democratic theory, the history of political thought (ancient to modern), American political thought, global politics and ethics, and normative topics in political economy, including courses that straddle subfields (i.e. theory and comparative, theory and IR).

My undergraduate seminar on Global Justice always attracts significant student interest. The course begins with classic texts on global justice before branching out to normative issues such as global resource inequality, immigration and border control, climate change, human rights, humanitarianism, and just war theory. I’m passionate about helping students make connections between abstract theoretical ideas and real-world policy issues, using political theory to obtain new critical insights on issues that they’re already passionate about and provide fresh vocabulary for expressing their views.

To facilitate these connections, my Global Justice course involves a “current events portfolio” assignment. Each week, students must obtain one magazine or newspaper article relevant to that week’s scholarly reading.  Students post the article to the course website with a one paragraph reading reflection. Students reference their articles during class discussion, or break off into small groups for further discussion. Finally, when the semester concludes, students collate each article into a portfolio. This assignment has proven both popular and pedagogically effective among a diverse student body.

My course Democracy and Inequality is an advanced undergraduate research seminar that combines immersive reading with tutorial-style supervision of independent research projects. Recent student research questions included: How should theories of agonistic democracy inform the politics of multiculturalism? How do normative discourses guide Dutch legislative debates about wealth taxation; what is the relationship between inequality and support for populist parties in Italy? How might descriptive representation for lower educated citizens be secured in the Netherlands?

I’m especially proud of my teaching and supervision at the M.A. level, a rare opportunity for somebody at my career stage. At the University of Chicago, I obtained a highly competitive position as a staff member in the M.A. Program in the Social Sciences. This position involved extensive supervision of a cohort of political science graduate students from diverse subfields. I taught a core module in social science methodology, and then assisted each student in the design and execution of an independent M.A. thesis, ultimately serving alongside a faculty reader in assessing the thesis. I’ve also worked with Amsterdam M.A. students. My seminar on Human Rights and Norms of Global Governance covers cutting-edge work in the field of human rights, before shifting to individual supervision of student M.A. theses.

Finally, my course Classics of Social and Political Thought, designed for first and second-year undergraduates, involves close reading and lively discussion of classic texts by authors such as Plato, Hobbes, Tocqueville, Marx, Nietzche, Du Bois, and Arendt. These courses are the product of substantial pedagogical training received through the University of Chicago’s Core program in the social sciences.

Eagerness in young minds is a thing to behold. However, I worry when students become too deferential to classic authors. How can students overcome their deference while still maintaining awe and wonderment? Likewise, I want to make those students not immediately drawn to the text earnestly engage with and appreciate them. Fortunately, class discussions are always helpful in shattering the barriers between reader and text on both counts. To facilitate discussion in a diverse classroom, I always make a point of introducing students to the wider social and political context in which authors like Plato and Aristotle wrote. Class discussion can then become an eye-opening experience in which students reflect upon how authors from different time periods were confronting political and social issues not too dissimilar to problems encountered in contemporary life.

As a graduate of a small liberal arts college, I value the intimate classroom environment that remains the hallmark of the liberal arts experience. I want to bring my joy for political theory to a new generation of students and aspiring social scientists who are committed to valuing diversity and intellectual inquiry.