Michael Joseph Sugrue is an American historian and former university professor. He spent his early career teaching at Columbia University and conducting research as https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Michael_Sugrue.jpga fellow at Johns Hopkins University prior to becoming a professor at Princeton University. After teaching at Princeton for a decade, Sugrue left his professorship to support the creation of Ave Maria University in 2004.[2] In 2020, he began to acquire an audience when his daughter, Genevieve Sugrue, started publishing a lecture series (taken while he was teaching at Princeton) on YouTube. He has since retired from teaching and currently hosts his podcast, The Idea Store, with Genevieve.
Infobox 🔗
| Born | Michael Joseph Sugrue New York City, New York, U.S. |
|---|---|
| Children | 3, including Genevieve |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago (BA) Columbia University (MA, MPhil, PhD) |
| Thesis | South Carolina College: The Education of an Antebellum Elite (1992) |
| Influences | Bloom Cropsey Plato Socrates Aurelius Kant Nietzsche |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | American history |
| Sub-discipline | Antebellum South |
| Institutions | Columbia University Johns Hopkins University Princeton University Ave Maria University |
| Main interests | Platonism, Stoicism, Postmodernism |
| Website | michaelsugrue.substack.com |
Early life and education 🔗
Sugrue was born in New York City in the 1950s, growing up in a predominantly Irish Catholic household and having been educated at a series of parochial schools.[3] He matriculated at the University of Chicago, where he had Allan Bloom and Joseph Cropsey as teachers, receiving his undergraduate degree in history in 1979.[3] While he was a student at the university, he placed first in a Phi Beta Kappa essay competition.[4] After graduating, Sugrue earned his master’s degree (MA), master of philosophy (MPhil), and doctorate in history from Columbia University.[[5]](https://web.archive.org/web/20221015210048/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_sugrue#cite_note-:2-5) His dissertation, South Carolina College: The Education of an Antebellum Elite, was completed in 1992.[[6]](https://web.archive.org/web/20221015210048/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_sugrue#cite_note-6) His early work as a scholar largely focused on examining [South Carolina College](https://web.archive.org/web/20221015210048/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Carolina_College) and its former president, [Thomas Cooper](https://web.archive.org/web/20221015210048/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cooper_(American_politician,_born_1759)), in connection with [slavery](https://web.archive.org/web/20221015210048/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery).[[7]](https://web.archive.org/web/20221015210048/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_sugrue#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMcKiviganSnay199891–92-7) When he graduated, he was offered teaching positions at either [Harvard University](https://web.archive.org/web/20221015210048/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University) or [Princeton University](https://web.archive.org/web/20221015210048/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_University), to which he chose the latter as he would be able to teach the [Great Books](https://web.archive.org/web/20221015210048/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books).[[8]](https://web.archive.org/web/20221015210048/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_sugrue#cite_note-8)
Academic career 🔗
Sugrue has taught at the City College of New York, Columbia University, Manhattan College, New York University, Hampton University, and Touro College, among others. From 1992 to 1994, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Johns Hopkins University.[4] In addition, he was the Behrman Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Council of Humanities of Princeton University, where he taught for a decade.[3] In 1992, Sugrue encountered Tom Rollins, the founder of The Great Courses, who was absent of an available professor to lecture on Machiavelli as part of a series on the history of Western philosophy.[9] After Sugrue volunteered to lecture, the series became a bestseller.[[9]](https://web.archive.org/web/20221015210048/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_sugrue#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMacDonald2018168-9) Later, as part of a Great Minds program with Darren Staloff (who was also a professor at Princeton), a number of Sugrue’s lectures were video-taped and organized into categories including Great Minds of the Western Tradition, Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition, and The Bible in Western Culture.
While he was a professor at Ave Maria University, Sugrue taught an online lecture series on The Great Courses titled “Plato, Socrates, and the Dialogues”.[5] He served as the chairman of the university’s Core Curriculum Committee.[2]
YouTube channel and podcast 🔗
Beginning in 2020, Sugrue’s daughter began uploading his video-taped lectures on YouTube where they garnered over 2.5 million views.[3] In 2021, Sugrue and Genevieve created the Idea Store podcast, primarily centered around discussions concerning a variety of topics in philosophy hosted by Sugrue.[10]
Personal life 🔗
Sugrue is a Catholic, and has said “it is not clear to me that love is a lesser value than truth—I like them both”.[11] Since 2011, he has had metastatic cancer and has undergone chemotherapy.[11]
Selected works 🔗
- Sugrue, Michael (1992). South Carolina College: The Education of an Antebellum Elite (Thesis). Columbia University.
- Sugrue, Michael (1994). “We Desired Our Future Rulers to be Educated Men: South Carolina College, the Defense of Slavery, and the Development of Secessionist Politics”. Journal of Higher Education. 14.[12]
References 🔗
“About Michael Sugrue”. YouTube.
“Dynamic Duos”. Ave Maria University Magazine. No. Fall 2014. Ave Maria University. 2014. p. 13 – via Isuu.
Hirschauer, John (2022-03-05). “Michael Sugrue: An Intellectual Life”. The American Conservative. Retrieved 2022-09-05.
[“Learning Courses”](https://web.archive.org/web/20221015210048/https://archive.org/stream/LearningCourses/Plato%2C Socrates%2C and the Dialogues/Plato%2C Socrates%2C and the Dialogues_djvu.txt), Internet Archive, retrieved 2022-09-05
“Professor Michael Sugrue, Ph.D.” The Great Courses. Retrieved 2022-09-05.
South Carolina College : the education of an antebellum elite. WorldCat. OCLC 29780828. Retrieved 6 September 2022.
McKivigan & Snay 1998, p. 91–92.
“The Idea Store: Audience Q&A (Part 4) on Apple Podcasts”. Apple Podcasts. Retrieved 2022-09-13.
MacDonald 2018, p. 168.
“The Idea Store • A podcast on Anchor”. Anchor. Retrieved 2022-09-05.
Michael Sugrue Q&A with RNCM Philosophy Society on YouTube
- McKivigan & Snay 1998, p. 105.
Sources 🔗
- Beadle, Nancy; Cherry, Thomas Kevin B.; Geiger, Roger L.; Ringer, Fritz; Sugrue, Michael, eds. (1994). “History of Higher Education Annual”. The Journal of Higher Education. Pennsylvania State University. 14.
- McKivigan, John R.; Snay, Mitchell, eds. (1998). Religion and the Antebellum Debate over Slavery. Athens; London: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0820320762.
- MacDonald, Heather (2018). The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture. St. Martin’s Press. ISBN 9781250200914.