Michael Kessler

While at Chicago, Kessler taught in the Social Sciences Collegiate Division, teaching a year-long Social and Political Theory Core class on Classics of Social and Political Theory. He was the Preceptor for the inaugural year of the Religious Studies Concentration, advising 5 students on their 4th year BA thesis. Prior to teaching at Chicago, Kessler was a visiting Assistant Professor of humanities and philosophy at Purdue University for 4 years.

Kessler’s research and writing focus on theology, philosophical and religious ethics, and social, political, and legal theory . He is particularly interested in the processes of secularization and the changing bases of political and legal legitimacy and understandings of rights and justice under the impact of modernity. He is interested in problems of religious freedom, both globally and in the US constitutional context. He is also engaged in projects on fundamental liberties, morals legislation, and the power of the state to control individual behaviors. He is the author of a number of articles and reviews, and co-editor of Mystics: Presence and Aporia (University of Chicago Press, 2003). Presently, he is assembling two manuscripts with Oxford: Political Theology for a Plural Age (Oxford, 2012) and coediting with Shaun Casey the Oxford Handbook of Political Theology. He is also presently at work on a monograph that explores the fundamental, ethical horizons of law in two seminal moments in Anglo-American law as it treats religious conscience, the 1744 case of Omichund v. Barker and recent American cases such as the 2007 case Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation. The book argues that whereas Omichund opened the courts to citizens precisely because their conscience was sacred, our condition under contemporary American law reveals radically narrowed access for citizens and thus yields less protection for citizens’ conscience rights.

Besides an active scholar and teacher, Kessler has served in various roles as an administrator. At the Berkley Center, Kessler helps coordinate the development of academic and public programs and manage Center logistics, including strategies for fund-raising, events, and communications. Kessler is the faculty leader for the program areas on Law, Religion, and Values and various curricular initiatives like the Undergraduate Fellows Seminars.

Prior to joining the Berkley Center, Kessler was Assistant Dean for Strategic Planning and Faculty Development for Georgetown College, managing a portfolio of responsibilities that provided primary support to the Dean of the College in faculty affairs, curricular development, international affairs, graduate program development, development and fundraising for special programs, communications, and strategic planning and special initiatives. While a dean in the College, Kessler taught in the Department of Theology.