Max Cherem CV

Fall 2026

Max Gabriel Cherem

Kalamazoo College
Department of Philosophy
1200 Academy St
Kalamazoo, MI 49006

Educational History

2012, Ph.D. in Philosophy, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
2004, BA in Philosophy, Honors, magna cum laude, Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, Michigan

Academic Positions

  • 2024-present, Professor of Philosophy, Kalamazoo College (tenured)
  • 2017-2023, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Kalamazoo College (tenured)
  • 2019-2021, Posse Foundation Faculty Mentor for Posse Scholar Students (2-year mentor position)
  • 2018-2019, Grotius Research Scholar, University of Michigan Law School (1-year fellowship)
  • 2015-2018, Marlene Crandell Francis Assistant Professor of Philosophy (3-year research chair)
  • 2015-2016, Humanities Writ Large Visiting Faculty Fellow, Duke University (1-year fellowship)
  • 2011-2016, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Kalamazoo College (tenure track; first year ABD)

Areas of Specialization and Competence

  • AOS: Ethics, Applied Ethics, Philosophy of Law, Political Philosophy (figures: esp. Locke, Kant, and Marx; issue areas: esp. refugee policy, immigration, human rights, and international law).
  • AOC: Modern Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy, Medical Ethics, Critical Theory.

Grants, Honors and Awards

  • 2019-20, Junior and Mid-Career Research Award, for archival visits and translation (college wide)
  • 2018-19, Grotius Research Scholarship, University of Michigan Law School (global)
  • 2018, Hudson Award for best sabbatical research proposal in a year (college wide)
  • 2015-18, Marlene Crandell Francis Chair in the Humanities at Kalamazoo College (college wide)
  • 2015, Mellon Foundation ‘Humanities Writ Large’ Faculty Fellow at Duke University (national)
  • 2015, Advocate of the Year ‘Black-and-Orange’ Leadership Award at Kalamazoo College
  • 2014, Grants to present at conferences hosted by: the University of Notre Dame Australia; Indiana- Purdue University, Fort Wayne; University of Southern Oregon; University of Tampa.
  • 2013, National Endowment for the Humanities participant in ‘Development Ethics’ Institute at Michigan State University (nationally competitive).
  • 2010, Thomas McCarthy Award for best Teaching Assistant in Philosophy at Northwestern
  • 2009, Weinberg Outstanding Teacher Award for best TA in the Arts & Sciences at Northwestern
  • 2009, Residential Colleges Professional Development Grant for a summer course on ‘Concepts of Citizenship’ at Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität in Frankfurt, Germany
  • 2009, Thomas McCarthy Award best Teaching Assistant in Philosophy at Northwestern
  • 2009, Foreign Language and Area Studies Scholarship for summer Nepali at Cornell University
  • 2009, Cornell South Asia Program Scholarship for summer Nepali at Cornell University
  • 2008, Jacques Derrida Prize for the year’s best essay in Critical Theory at Northwestern University    
  • 2008, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Summer Language Course Scholarship for a translation course at Johannes Gutenberg Universität-Mainz in Germersheim, Germany
  • 2008, Thomas McCarthy Award for best Teaching Assistant in Philosophy at Northwestern
  • 2008, Foreign Language and Area Studies Scholarship for summer Nepali at Cornell University
  • 2008, Cornell South Asia Program Scholarship for summer Nepali at Cornell University
  • 2007, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Summer Language Study Scholarship for intermediate German courses at the Goethe Institute in Frankfurt, Germany   
  • 2004, Fulbright Fellowship. ‘Human Rights-based development models of INGOs in Nepal’

Publications

  • 2026, “Refugees and Location in International Law and Morality,” Political Philosophy (forthcoming).
  • 2025, “Climate Migrants are not Refugees” in The Routledge Handbook of the Ethics of
  • Immigration Sahar Akhtar (ed.) (Routledge).
  • 2025, “Humanitarianism and its Problems” in Handbook of Migration Ethics Andreas Niederberger,
  • Uchenna Okeja, and Johanna Gördemann (eds.) (Springer).
  • 2020, “May States Select Refugees?,” Ethics and Global Politics, vol. 13, iss. 1, 33-49.
  • 2020, “Oxford Online Bibliographies in Philosophy-Jürgen Habermas” (subscription for full entry)
  • 2016, “Jürgen Habermas,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • 2016, “Refugee Rights: Against an Expanded Refugee Definition and Unilateral Protection Elsewhere Policies,” Journal of Political Philosophy vol. 24, iss. 2, 183-205.
  • 2015, Philosophers on the Syrian Refugees: Understanding the Structural Issues, Daily Nous
  • 2011, “Response to Dana Howard on Paternalism”, The American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Philosophy and Medicine. vol. 9, no. 2

Miscellaneous

  • 2019, “Forcibly Displaced Non-Refugees” New Tactics in Human Rights (expert discussion series).
  • 2016, Kenan Institute for Ethics Interview

Work in progress

(drafts available on request)

  • “Locke’s Peopling” (arguing his first treatise idea of “peopling” is important in the second treatise)
  • “Sporting Law” (arguing football’s 1-point safety rule shows a new point about legal originalism)
  • “Nothing to Loose but Our Chains” (arguing there are classically Marxist reasons to ride a bike)
  • “Walzer revised” (arguing a classic migration article is best understood via its drafting process)
  • “Locating Refugees” (under review; philosophical defense of the importance of location)
  • “Using Seized Assets to Assist Refugees” (linking recent proposals to past IRO experience)
  • “Shifting Regional Interests for Korea” (the history and future of refugee convention’s Art. 1D)

Invited talks, conference presentations, commentaries, chaired sessions, etc.

  • 2017-2018, Talks at UiT in Tromso Norway and Sienna Heights College in Adrian Michigan.
  • 2016, Invited talks at: Indiana University, Manchester College, Purdue University
  • 2015, “Why Location Matters for Refugee Debates” presented at the University of Michigan Law School’s Young Scholars Conference and Durham University’s Global Justice Conference.
  • 2014, “Refugees, Human Rights, and the Perils of the New Humanitarianism”: a short course of three classes for social science graduate students at Sogang University (Seoul, South Korea).
  • 2014, “Refugee Human Rights: Against the Unilateral Right to Exclude” at conferences at the University of Notre Dame Australia; Indiana-Purdue University, Fort Wayne.
  • 2015, “Commentary on AT Wright’s “Business Corporations Should Not Have Moral Rights of Free Expression” American Philosophical Association Central Division Conference.
  • 2012, Chaired the American Philosophical Society’s Central Division “issues in political
  • philosophy” session “Educational Opportunity”.
  • 2010, “Commentary on Joanne Lau’s The State is Not a Radio Station: Presumptive Benefit and Political Obligation” Northwestern Society for Ethical & Political Theory annual conference
  • 2009, “Comments on Dana Howard’s Paternalism as Non-Domination” and on “Commentary on Quentin Gee’s Human Rights in a Well-Ordered Society” Northwestern SEPT conference
  • 2005, “Beyond the Binary of NGOs” American Embassy in Nepal and Kathmandu Law School

Languages

  • German, Advanced Intermediate (B-2-2) level in 2008 (Goethe Institute rubric);
  • Nepalese, Advanced level in 2006 (Peace Corps rubric);