Alan M. Levine is an Associate Professor of political theory in the Department of Government in the School of Public Affairs at American University and founding Director of AU's Political Theory Institute. He is also Affiliate Associate Professor in AU's Department of Philosophy and Religion. He earned his B.A. at the University of Chicago and his M.A. and Ph.D. at Harvard University. His publications include Sensual Philosophy: Toleration, Skepticism, and Montaigne's Politics of the Self (2001), Early Modern Skepticism and the Origins of Toleration (editor, 1999), and A Political Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson (co-editor, 2011) as well as articles on Montaigne, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Chinua Achebe, Judith Shklar, European views of America, the Enlightenment idea of commerce, and the origins of toleration. His has been awarded three prestigious residential fellowships at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University; the Institute of United States Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London; and the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University; as well as two research awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has also received a Foundation for the Defense of Democracy award to study counter terrorism in Israel and four teaching awards at American University.