ABOUT

I am a political theorist and currently a Lecturer and Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science at the Université de Montréal.  There I am affiliated with two research centers: the Centre canadien d’études allemandes et européennes and the Centre d’études classiques.

Education

PhD and MA in Government
Harvard University, 2016–2022
Dissertation: Powers of Practice: Michel Foucault and the Politics of Asceticism (Available here)
Committee: Danielle Allen (chair); Katrina Forrester; Elizabeth Lunbeck; Panagiotis Roilos

MA in Political Science
University of Toronto, 2014–2015

BA (First Class Honours) in Contemporary Studies and English, with Minor in Classics
University of King’s College and Dalhousie University, 2009–2014

Languages

Modern Languages: English, French, German, Modern Greek
Ancient Languages: Ancient Greek (Attic and Koine), Latin, Sanskrit

News, media, & events

William Tilleczek Book Manuscript Workshop (November 2024): The City and Self-Transformation: Michel Foucault and the Political Theory of Asceticism

Success at APSA 2024

William Tilleczek Receives the 2024 Leo Strauss Award for “Powers of Practice: Michel Foucault and the Politics of Asceticism”

2022 Harvard Poetry Stroll

Mass Poetry U35 Poetry Reading

More info

I have also held positions as SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at McGill University, where I was a member of the Research Group on Constitutional Studies. In 2023, I was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Deep Springs College. I hold a PhD in Government from Harvard University, where my dissertation was awarded the APSA Leo Strauss Award for Best Dissertation in Political Philosophy.

My research and teaching expertise are in 20th century political thought and ancient political thought, and I study how ‘ethics’ and ‘politics’ intersect in domains such as labour, education, self-cultivation, physical training, and decolonization. I am also a specialist in the thought of Michel Foucault.

My questions: What global variations can we see in self-transformational struggles, and what insights can these give us for thinking domination and freedom in the 21st century? How, if at all, can changing the self change the world? And is this question itself a neoliberal trap?