Michael A. Portal

I am pursuing a Ph.D. in Philosophy under the direction of Drs. Daniel Conway and Claire Katz. My dissertation is titled "The Problem of Evil and Being in Levinas and Blanchot."

I completed my M.A. in History at Texas A&M University (2023) under the direction of Dr. Cynthia Bouton.

I completed my M.A. in French Studies at the American College of the Mediterranean (2018) under the direction of Dr. Michel Lantelme.

I completed my B.A. in Philosophy and Policy Studies at Rice University (2017). My Senior thesis was prepared under the direction of Dr. Steven Crowell.

You can find my CV here.

My research interests include: 

• Jewish Philosophy (esp. Jewish mysticism and Holocaust or memory studies)

• Post-Kantian European Philosophy (esp. hermeneutics, phenomenology, and existentialism)

• Social and Political Philosophy (esp. empire or nationalism studies and French thought post-May 1968)

• Aesthetics

My dissertation concerns the "right to exist" and the relation between evil and justification in the work of Emmanuel Levinas and Maurice Blanchot. You can follow my work on PhilPeople.