Mike’s research interests are in Theology and Literature,
Systematic Theology, and the literary/political cultures of
Catholicism—but he also thinks and writes about issues in
mimetic theory, social ethics, and Ignatian pedagogy. His first
book, A Theology of Criticism: Balthasar, Postmodernism, and the
Catholic Imagination (Oxford), was named a "Distinguished
Publication" in 2008 by the American Academy of Religion. His
most recent scholarly work is "Panem et Circenses: Michel
Houellebecq, Submission, and the Liturgies of Spiritual
Exhaustion" in The Call of Literature (Forthcoming from Routledge in 2024). Mike is currently at
work on a monograph entitled The Humane Realists: Catholic Fiction, Poetry, and Film 1965-2020.