Mike
is principally an environmental sociologist and a social theorist.
Three central foci can be found in all of his work: dialogics, the
sociology of nature, and social justice. These concerns for the world
have led him to studies of culture, agricultural sustainability,
consumption, food, participation, democracy, economic sociology,
community, place, rurality, inequality, gender, the body, the sociology
of music, and more.
Mike likes books and is the author or an editor
of seven, three of which have won national
awards. His books include:
An
Invitation to Environmental Sociology (2009; third
edition)
Country
Boys: Masculinity and Rural Life (2006)
Farming
for Us All: Practical Agriculture
and the Cultivation of Sustainability (2004)
Walking
Toward Justice: Democratization
in Rural Life (2003)
Bakhtin
and the Human Sciences:
No Last Words (1998)
Childerley:
Nature and Morality in
a Country Village (1994)
The
Face of Connecticut: People,
Geology, and the Land (1985)
Currently, Mike is writing a social theory book
on dialogue and dialogics
and conducting a range of projects on
participation, food, and agroecology.
He is chair of the Agroecology
Graduate Program and a member of the Agroecology
Cluster at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, as well
as a member of the faculty of the Gaylord
Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies and a faculty associate
of the Center for Integrated
Agricultural Systems. He is also a Visiting Fellow
at the Centre
for Rural Economy at Newcastle
University in the United Kingdom.
Mike has a second life as a
composer of contemporary classical and folk music,
and as a folk musician. Mike's
compositions include pieces for the violin family, the mandolin
family, solo piano, symphony orchestra, and various chamber ensembles.
The Bach
Dancing and Dynamite Society premiered his composition The
Wick of the Land, on May 13th, 2007, at a
concert of rural-themed music in the Overture Center in Madison,
Wisconsin. He is at work on several other chamber works and his first
symphony. Mike also continues to write tunes and songs that contibute
to the British Isles and Klezmer folk traditions. His classical
composition draws much of its inspiration from these traditions as
well.
As a performer, Mike mainly favors the mandolin,
his vote for the most beautiful instrument in the world. He is an
emeritus member of the Iowa-based Barn
Owl Band. He appeared with the Barn Owls on the long-running
National Public Radio show A
Prairie Home Companion in 2002 and in a reprise
performance in 2005. The Owls released their first
CD, Dance
Owl Night, in 2000; their second CD, Barn
Owls Live, in 2003; and their third
CD, Cloud
Forest, in 2006—all of which feature some of Mike's tunes
and songs. He currently plays in a variety of semi-irregular trios,
including the Wiretappers.