In his role as Director of Educational Programs & Teaching Fellow at Hillsdale College’s Washington, DC campus, Dr. Rieley oversees numerous programs, including the James Madison Fellowship and the AWC Lecture series, and teaches courses in political thought and literature for the Van Andel Graduate School of Government.
His doctoral dissertation offers a critical interpretation of St. Thomas More’s classic work Utopia, seeking elucidate More’s political philosophy in light of early modern Christian humanism.
He served as an enlisted infantryman in the Army National Guard for nine years, attaining the rank of sergeant. His service included overseas tours in support of contingency operations in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Iraq.
A native of Delaware, he currently resides in Maryland with his wife and two daughters.
Recent Publications
"Towering Thomas More," Modern Age Journal, January 2026
“Pete Hegseth charts a course to reclaim military strength and purpose,” The Blaze Media, October 2025
“Mob Violence Is Fatal to Republican Government,” The American Mind, September 2025
“Equity as a Conservative Principle,” The American Conservative, January 2023
“Constitutionalism in an Age Without Limits,” The American Conservative, February 2023
“What Americans Must Learn from the Afghanistan Debacle,” The Federalist, August 2021
“Seeking a Humane Political Order: The Limits of Rationalism,” The Imaginative Conservative, February 2016
“Tyranny in American Political Discourse,” The Imaginative Conservative, December 2013
Recent Interviews
Athenaeum Book Club on Thomas More’s Utopia, November 2025
Conference Papers Given
"The Drama of Duty: Political Morality in the Stage Play Analogies of More’s Utopia and Richard III,” with Dr. Nicholas McAfee. Paper presented at the Center for Thomas More Studies Annual Conference, November 2025.
"Aristotle on Friendship and the Limits of Politics” Paper presented at the American Politics and Government Summit, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, October 2025.
Courses Taught
Van Andel Graduate School of Government
- Political Thought and Literature I
- Political Thought and Literature II
- Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy
- Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men
- Early Modern Christian Humanist Political Thought