Mike is principally an environmental sociologist and a 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 agroecology, the body, community, consumption, culture, food, democracy, economic sociology, gender, inequality, participation, place, rurality, the sociology of music, and more.

Mike likes books and is the author or an editor of eight, three of which have won national awards. His books include:

An Invitation to Environmental Sociology (4th edition, 2012; forthcoming)

The Strange Music of Social Life: A Dialogue on Dialogic Sociology (2011; forthcoming)

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 book on the sociology of the absolute, and conducting a range of projects on participation, development, and agroecology. He is co-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 System. 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. His recent compositional work has been for the band Graminy, developing a dialogue between grassroots and classical traditions that Graminy likes to call "class-grass" music. Mike's newest major composition, "Water Grass Place," premiered on October 10th, 2010, and is a 39-minute suite for choir and class-grass ensemble. (See Events for details.) A CD of the performance is shortly to be released. Mike is at work on several other chamber works and a 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. Currently, he performs in a variety of ensembles, including Graminy and eleike, a duo with his daughter. Mike is also an emeritus member of the nationally-known 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.