When I walked into my Comparative Politics class last year, I didn’t know what to expect. I hadn’t been in the Political Science department very long, and wasn’t familiar with the professor at all. When he entered the class, I immediately noticed his decidedly stylish outfit– it made a statement that was impossible to ignore. He seemed to present himself as organized, and a bit eccentric. I quickly realized that my new professor possessed a keen wit and razor sharp intelligence that was quite intimidating. Throughout the semester he assigned detailed, interesting, and often long articles that lead to class discussions which made me question some supposed truths I had carried with me my whole life.
Just last week in my Political Science Research Methods class, the professor asked us to name all the professors in the department. After naming the professor teaching the class, every student in the class as one voice said Bosia’s name before any other in the department. He truly is a well-known name on campus and is respected by every student who has come into contact with him. When I speak with other students who have had him, they almost alway say, “I think he is the smartest person I have ever met.” I don’t disagree.
(pictured above: Professor Michael Bosia (right) and Isabella Alcañiz, assistant professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland (left) at The Women’s March in Washington, DC)
HC: Where are you from?
MB: I’m originally from California, born in San Francisco. I worked in the state legislature in Sacramento and for an elected official in San Francisco, attended graduate school in Chicago, and have lived in Vermont since 2004.
HC: What is your position on campus?
MB: I am an associate professor of political science.
HC: What topics do you specialize in?
MB: My research is on LGBTQI politics and human rights, in particular about homophobia in democratic and non-democratic contexts. I also teach on democracy, state violence, and transitional justice, as well as comparative politics more broadly.
HC: I know that you recently attended the Women’s March in DC– how would you describe the experience? What was your favorite sign that you saw?
MB: The march was one of the most important and positive political experiences of my life. Visually, I was overwhelmed by the pink pussy hats – the color swept across the crowd, and the hats themselves were made by women across the country who could not attend the march in Washington, distributed for free by women who could. It was an overwhelming act of solidarity and friendship. I was given my hat the night before on the Metro – it was made by Ann in Reno, Nevada.
HC: In regards to the new administration, what are some of your specific concerns?
MB: There’s no particular place to start in answering this question. Generally, the administration is substantively anti-democratic and populist, narrowly nationalistic domestically and, in a way that the US has never been, openly nationalistic on the world stage. Trump sees no difference between the advocates of global cooperation and human rights, on one hand, or those who murder journalists, foment violent insurrection against democratic movements, coddle gangs who torture gay men, or believe that conquest of territory is a legitimate policy goal. His nationalist populism identifies our strongest allies as our enemies, builds walls that divide peoples and governments who most recently experienced the greatest levels of mutual cooperation, development, and democratic change. His brutalism smashes scientific evidence, environmental protection, press freedom, public education, human rights, and the future of our planet. His overt misogyny – in words, actions, and policy, from sexual assault to a cabinet full of men — and his outreach to the most overt white supremacist movements and his shocking bigotry demonstrate a political racism without parallel in contemporary US governance. He is a combination of the populist and corrupt personalistic strongmen of Latin America, the clientelistic and nepotistic crony oligarchies of many former Soviet states, the right wing nationalist extremism and supple anti-Semitism of European extremism. So I guess my answer to the question about specific concerns is there is nothing specific in a political or analytical sense to suggest any notes of optimism.
HC: What can we do, as students, to combat the new administration’s efforts to suppress the rights that so many have worked so hard for?
MB: Mobilize in any way possible. Do not appease the rise of anti-democratic politics. Speak out on those things you oppose and encourage your elected officials to refuse participation in the government until it proves that it will protect the basic contours of domestic democratic institutions and promote democratic movements, human rights, and the protection of our only planet at home and on the global stage.
HC: Most of the people reading this piece are young millennials who are probably feeling pretty pessimistic about the future right now. What is one piece of advice you have for a Saint Mike’s student on how to not just make it through the next four years, but to make a difference in the next four years?
MB: Two things. First, kindness to each other. We often talk about working in solidarity – LGBTQI, women, people of color, working people, environmentalists, farmers as part of a broad coalition in support of social justice. Second, women lead. The Washington March showed us what was possible when people gather together with the leadership of women in a spirit of communal generosity, mutual respect, and simple kindness. There were so many moments when people helped each other, when kindness, respect and optimism made the march not only the largest in US history, but the largest in some places nearly absent any security and in others where police assisted marchers. In DC, I saw only one police officer over more than 5 hours, and did not see any others until arriving at the White House. As a man in this movement, I defer to the leadership of women, and I ask all men – from millennials to my fellow Xers and beyond – to defer to the leadership of the women who will transform our moment and our movement.
HC: I recently read your Common Text essay. It was very personal– how did you feel writing something close to home knowing so many students would be reading it? Do you think a certain level of personal disclosure is necessary when attempting to connect with a diverse audience?
MB: I think we all should learn from the women’s movement that the personal is the political. There is no way to separate who we are from what we care about, and no place of safety to shield ourselves from the potential damage to our democracy and to the planet that is our only home. Part of the process of resistance has to be consciousness raising – to understand where we are in this moment ourselves, what we fear as individuals and as part of families and communities, and the very real and very personal experiences of being targeted, and how what we see has a history that offers important lessons to comfort and to provoke us, and comparisons that suggest where the government might go and how we might resist.
HC: If you could create a course at SMC, what would it be?
MB: I have two courses: Democratic Transitions and State Violence and Justice, that offer an analysis of how social movements fight anti-democratic governments, promote human rights, and expand participation. But the courses I would recommend are those taught by women – Crystal L’Hote and Shefali Misra – on Feminist Philosophy and Feminist Political Thought, so we can understand the leadership of women. But I did revise the Film Politics course I am teaching this semester to include a section on the film Cabaret, which traces the end of democracy in Germany through the experiences of two couples – one foreign mixed-gender bisexual couple and the other a heterosexual Jewish couple – living in Berlin.
HC: Finally, pick three words to describe yourself.
MB: I leave that to others.