Professor LaVaque-Manty's primary appointment is in the Department of Political Science, where he teaches political theory. His research and teaching interests center on modern and contemporary political theory, from the eighteenth century to the present, with an emphasis on Kant and continental liberalism. His general approach is analytic social theory, which combines the tools of analytic political philosophy, textual interpretation, and a focus on historical and sociological details. He has written, among other things, on political agency (Arguments and Fists: Justification and Agency in Liberal Political Theory, 2002), eating disorders ("Food, Functioning and Justice," Journal of Political Philosophy, 2001), Kant's theory of education ("Kant's Children," Social Theory and Practice, 2006). His most recent book, The Playing Fields of Eton (2009), explores the tension between the values of equality and excellence from eighteenth-century debates on dueling to contemporary controversies over athletic doping. He is currently working on the Hegelian roots of the European welfare state.