UAS Personnel

Education:

Ph.D. Religion and Society (Sociology of Religion), Graduate Theological Union M.A.  Religion, Yale Divinity School B.A. Humanities, University of Chicago

Publications:

Tony is the author of six books, including, The Death of Secular Messianism: Religion and Politics in an Age of Civilizational Crisis (Cascade 2010) and Spirituality and Dialectics (with Maggie Mansueto, Lexington 2005). His articles have appeared in leading scholarly journals including as the Journal of Religion and Filosofskie Nauki, as well as important journals of public opinion such as Commonweal and Tikkun. A leader in interreligious dialogue and organizing, he has led pioneering efforts to create a new kind of public arena, democratic and pluralistic, but constituted by deliberation regarding fundamental questions of meaning and value.

Courses Taught:

Tony has taught philosophy, religious studies, sociology, and history at colleges and universities through the United States and in Mexico as well as to distance students, including deployed military in Afghanistan, Iraq, and around the world.

Biography:

Tony was born on Long Island to a second generation Sicilian engineer father and a mother with roots in the hills of Southwestern Virginia. In addition to ordinary suburban American childhood pursuits like baseball and UFO detection, Tony loved nothing more than wandering the streets of Brooklyn with his Sicilian immigrant grandfather, listening to his stories and absorbing the worldview of a man who was sold into slavery by his father, who escaped to come to the US where he built a life for himself, and became a skilled craftsman and union organizer. Following his relentless desire to know EVERYTHING, Tony studied at the University of Chicago, Yale, and Berkeley. His dissertation was based on research he did in Chicago, in which he interviewed 60 Italian immigrants about their experiences both before and after coming to the United States.  He spoke to union organizers and fascist sympathizers, Boy Scout leaders and ditch diggers, teachers and drop-outs.  And after completing the official interview protocol, he asked them to take him to their kitchens and teach him to cook. The effort convinced him that ordinary people do engage fundamental questions of meaning and value, often in profound and complex ways. While he studied with some of the leaders in his field, he regards his most important teachers as the often unlettered but profoundly wise laborers, artisans, merchants and organizers he met both on this project and in his later work as a community organizer.  

Tony loves learning and teaching, and came to understand both by the old Confucian adage, “Ripen Being.”  That means: find the deepest potential of something or someone, and help it to come to fruition. He approaches academic administration the same way, struggling to understand the communities his institution serves and to find ways to tap into their latent potential. Tony is ably helped in this and all other endeavors by his wife of 20+ years, Maggie. Perhaps his most important teacher right now is his 5 year old daughter, Coeli, who has not yet learned not to ask “why?” and who still demands (and expects) answers.  When he is not exploring the world with Coeli, you can find him hiking, writing (science fiction/magic realism as well as scholarly and political work) painting, or making beer.  And he still loves to cook, searching out ancient recipes from every culture on the planet and exploring their alchemical and cultural significance.

Other:

Tony is a seasoned academic leader with a strong commitment to liberal education and to helping communities think creatively about their future. He has served as a faculty member, program director, department chair, dean, and now campus director while maintaining an active presence in the public arena both locally and globally and engaging in serious scholarship regarding fundamental questions of meaning and value.  He brings to the University of Alaska Southeast experience working as a community organizer, teaching first generation students from diverse ethnic communities (including Native Americans), and teaching in and leading distance education programs. He has record of strengthening the liberal education mission of the institutions he has served and of making them real centers for public deliberation regarding fundamental questions of meaning and value. He looks forward to helping make the University of Alaska Southeast - Ketchikan a place where the city and the region can explore and incubate paths forward economically which tap into the rich natural and cultural resources of the area and which promote the full development of its people, while deepening and enriching their ongoing deliberations regarding what kind of community they want to be.