Interests

I am an Associate Professor of Sociology and International and Global Studies at Brandeis University. I teach and write about how culture shapes our perceptions of reality, our social behavior, and political trends from one country to another. I am especially interested in countries that have or had authoritarian governments.

I started as a reporter in Central Europe shortly after the collapse of Communism: I covered the break-up of Czechoslovakia and the wars in former Yugoslavia. Recently I have been studying the survival of authoritarianism in Russia and China and the resistance to these regimes in Ukraine and Hong Kong.

At other points in my career I have been an English teacher, an omelette chef, a political advisor, a speechwriter, the fleet captain of a small yacht club, and the lead tenor in the American debut of an obscure Handel opera.