“A Christmas Story” when he was a boy. Courtesy | Peter Blum
What’s one trend from the 80s you wish would come back? Not having nostalgia about the 80s. Who is one author you think is underrated? Stephen King is underrated in a sense, partially because he’s still living. What’s one thing on your bucket list? Trying to learn to speak German relatively fluently. I’ve also thought a lot about French because a lot of the philosophy and social theory I study is French.What’s one word people use to describe you? A friend of mine once introduced me to someone as “an aficionado of the weird.”When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up? I thought it would be cool to be a junkman. I don’t know why, maybe it was partly because I watched “Sanford and Son.” I also knew of salvage places in the area where I grew up and it seemed to me that it would be really weird to have that justification for having a huge yard full of stuff. In high school, I was going to be a singer-songwriter. What is one thing you believed as a young adult that you’ve since changed your mind about? In high school I was a Bible-thumping, fire-breathing fundamentalist. I’m spending my life recovering from that. There’s a certain way of approaching Christianity, according to which I was certain about everything. One of the things I know now is that there’s not much I’m certain about. What is one memory from your childhood that stands out to you? Raking leaves in the fall. You know the movie “Ratatouille,” in the scene where the food critic takes a bite of the ratatouille and is all of a sudden a kid? That’s what happens to me when I smell burning leaves. What is the most memorable gift you ever received? My wife gave me a frame that had our names and our wedding date, and the background was the lyrics to our ‘song.’ I wouldn’t have been completely sure that she remembered that. I opened it and I was teary and speechless. What is the funniest thing one of your students has ever said to you? There was a student of mine who came into my office and she said, “When I first came to Hillsdale, I thought I was conservative. And then I got here and everybody’s like squirrels on crack.” What is one thing most people don’t know about you? Anybody that knows me knows I like stuffed animals. I put pictures on Facebook of what I call ‘stuffies’: stuffed selfies. If you could have a meal with any fictional or historical figure, who would you choose? Roland of Gilead. Or Frank Zappa. What’s one way you hope to impact your students? I want them to realize how important it is to be able to understand points of view you don’t agree with, deeply and sympathetically. Not thinking about how you can refute it, but thinking, ‘Why would anybody think this?’ That always runs the risk that you will end up thinking it, but you have to take that risk.
