Professor of Political Science and Philosophy, works in political philosophy, with particular emphasis on modern continental theory and the history of political philosophy. He is the author of Hegel, Heidegger and the Ground of History, Nihilism before Nietzsche, and The Theological Origins of Modernity. He is also co-editor of Nietzsche's New Seas: Explorations in Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Politics, Ratifying the Constitution, and Homo Politicus, Homo Economicus. He has published articles on Montaigne, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Existentialism, and various topics in American political thought and public philosophy, as well as on the relation of religion and politics. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the German Academic Exchange Service, the Templeton Foundation, the Liberty Fund, the Jack Miller Foundation, the Smith Foundation, and the Earhart Foundation. He is the Director of the Duke Program in American Values and Institutions, the AB Duke Scholars Program, the Duke in Oxford Program, and the Visions of Freedom Focus Program.