Published on: August 19th, 2025

Faculty Feature: An Interview with Dr. David Azerrad

Dr. Azerrad is an Assistant Professor and Research Fellow at Hillsdale College’s Washington, D.C. Campus. His research and writing focuses on classical liberalism, conservative political thought and identity politics. This month, Hillsdale in D.C. asked Dr. Azerrad about his work and the classes he teaches.

  1. What is your favorite class?

I teach for both the Van Andel Graduate School of Government and for the undergraduates who spend a semester on the Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program (WHIP). My favorite WHIP class is "Contemporary American Political Thought". It's a survey of the post-Cold War American political order and its discontents. I teach it differently every semester (though there are some mainstays like Fukuyama and Nussbaum). This Fall, the focus will be on the debates surrounding capital L “Liberalism”: is it the best regime? Will every country one day be a liberal democracy? Just how liberal is America today?

For the graduate school, that's a tough question. I get to teach some great classes. My favorite, though, is probably Tocqueville. We read selections from Democracy in America, which as Mansfield notes, is both the best book ever written about democracy and the best book ever written about America. It's amazing how relevant and fresh Tocqueville is some two centuries after he wrote. 

  1. What have you recently published?

I wrote a review of the 2-volume Palgrave Handbook of Left-Wing Extremism for the Claremont Review of Books. It’s called “The Blood-Dimmed Tide.”

  1. What do you enjoy most about teaching at Hillsdale in D.C.?

That's an easy question to which the answer is, the students! It's such a pleasure to be in the classroom with them, to think things through together, to uncover a single sentence that unlocks an entire text, and to help them better understand the big ideas that are shaping our politics. It never fails to put a smile on my face when I meet a former student who will tell me that he or she still returns to a text we studied in class together.

To learn more about the Graduate School of Government, click here.

To learn more about the Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program, click here.

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About Hillsdale in D.C.

Hillsdale in D.C. is an extension of the teaching mission of Hillsdale College to Washington, D.C. Its purpose is to teach the Constitution and the principles that give it meaning. Through the study of original source documents from American history—and of older books that formed the education of America’s founders—it seeks to inspire students, teachers, citizens, and policymakers to return the America’s principles to their central place in the political life of the nation.

About Hillsdale College

Hillsdale College is an independent liberal arts college located in southern Michigan. Founded in 1844, the College has built a national reputation through its classical liberal arts core curriculum and its principled refusal to accept federal or state taxpayer subsidies, even indirectly in the form of student grants or loans. It also conducts an outreach effort promoting civil and religious liberty, including a free monthly speech digest, Imprimis, with a circulation of more than 5.7 million. For more information, visit hillsdale.edu.