A Ph.D. candidate in the Rhetoric Department, Michael Feola is writing a dissertation entitled GWF Hegel: Aesthetics and Politics in the Jena Essays. Feola’s work examines Hegel’s use of aesthetic terms and figures to respond to the problem of reconciling the demands of freedom and community. Through a close study of Hegel’s early essays and drafts, Feola shows the importance of the political debates of Hegel’s time for an understanding of the birth of German Idealism. At the same time, he argues for the relevance of Hegel’s aesthetic approach to political questions for recent philosophical debates regarding normativity.