Professor of Political Science, received his BA from Syracuse University and his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His primary teaching and research interests are in the areas of critical policy studies (energy and environment, agricultural and ecological policy, and national security and arms control), political theory (early, modern, and critical traditions), public ethics, and politics and literature. His most recent research grants have involved him in field work on issues of political economy, labor, and sustainable cities in Canada. His books include: The Missile Defense Controversy (1977), Energy and the Social Sciences (1982), The Acid Rain Debate (1985), The Unfulfilled Promise of Synthetic Fuels (1987), Political Mythology and Popular Fiction (1988), The Politics of Industrial Recruitment (1990), and North American Unions In Crisis: Lean Production as Contested Terrain (1996). His three dozen scholarly articles have appeared in a wide variety of professional journals, among others: International Interactions, Social Science Quarterly, Polity, Theory and Society, Review of Politics, Journal of Peace Research, Futures, Canadian Journal of Sociology, Built Environment, and Quebec Studies. His book on politics and science fiction titled, The Cross, the Plow, and the Skyline: Contemporary Science Fiction and the Ecological Imagination, was published in June 2001; and his most recent book, The Missile Defense Controversy: Technology in Search of a Mission, will be published in October 2002. The Associate Director of the  Center for Sustainable Cities and Director of   Environmental Studies Program in the College of Arts and Sciences, he is presently collaborating on a two-county prison project exploring public attitudes toward prison recruitment as local economic development policy. He also is a board member of the  Kentucky-Canadian Studies Roundtable.

Area of Specialization - Critical policy studies (energy and environment, agricultural and ecological policy, and national security and arms control), political theory (early, modern, and critical traditions), sustainable urban design, public ethics, and politics and literature.