Theatre, Film, and Television

I studied philosophy at Oxford with Paul Grice and at Harvard, with John Rawls ("A Theory of Justice") and Robert Nozick ("Anarchy, State and Utopia"), who were my two Ph.D. advisors. I am a professor of philosophy at Brandeis and served as Department Chair from 2006-- 2011. I'm also a member of the Harvard Summer School faculty.

I am to AMERICAN JOURNEY: The Times of Robert Kennedy, edited by Jean Stein and George Plimpton and to RISK: Public Health and Risk Assessment, edited by Edward J. Burger as well as a number of articles in philosophy, politics and law, among them, "Justifying Risk" which appeared in Daedalus: The Journal for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, "The Relevant Reasons for Distributing Health Care" which appeared in The Southern Journal of Philosophy, "Simone Weil: Equality as Compassion" which appeared in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, “Camera Obscurities” for The American Scientist, “The Freedom of Thought: A Pencil Is the Best of Eyes” for Etcetera: A Review of General Semantics, "Kant's Respect for Persons" and "A Defense of Pluralism and Equality," for the Sage Publication: PoliticalTheory and "Absent Framers or How Does the Constiution Mean?" for the LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS.

My research touches on a number of areas in political philosophy, philosophy of law, and aesthetics, in particular in the nature of representation in painting, photography, and film. I am a member and former fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and have visited the Institute on occasion since that time. I have also received fellowships from the Fulbright Program and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

I've received two teaching awards, the Michael Laban Walzer Award for Teaching and the Kermit H. Perlmutter Fellowship Award for Excellence in Teaching. syllabus for the Introduction to Philosophy course that I have taught for some time now during the Summer at Harvard and at Brandeis in the Fall is listed among the Top Ten Most Popular Philosophy Syllabi in the World. by Google and the Digital Library of America.

In 1987 I revived the POETS’ THEATRE and was its Artistic Director well into the 1990’s, working with poets and writers Seamus Heaney, Joseph Brodsky, Derek Walcott, Anthony Hecht, Amy Clampitt, Richard Wilbur, John Ashbery, Kenward Elmslie, Alison Lurie, John Updike, Donald Hall, Kenneth Koch, William Corbett, James Merrill, Joe LeSuer, Lloyd Schwartz, Frank Bidart, Gail Mazur, Robert Pinsky, Rosanna Warren and Allen Ginsberg, among others.

In 1992 I founded the CAMBRIDGE THEATRE COMPANY, and also served as its Artistic Director. The Theatres produced its shows at the Hasty Pudding Theater in Harvard Square and gained the reputation as Boston's leading off-Broadway theater. In 1998 the Theater Company was a co-recipient of the Elliot Norton Award, Boston's highest Theater Honor, for the Best Production of the Year.

As director of many of the stage productions for both the POETS’ THEATRE and the CAMBRDIGE THEATRE COMPANY, I worked with and directed onstage, among others, Claire Bloom, William Cain, Stockard Channing, Lindsay Crouse, Blythe Danner, Peter Falk, Julie Harris, John Heard, Sally Kellerman, Jackie Mason, Mort Sahl, Spalding Gray, Cherry Jones, Bill Murray, Alan Rachins, Christopher Reeve, Wallace Shawn, Kathryn Walker, Sam Waterston, Fritz Weaver, Debra Winger, Jimmy Tingle, Irene Worth, Valerie Harper, Stephen Hanan and Harris Yulin.