In 1989, May received a doctorate at Pennsylvania State University in continental philosophy.[3] For the first part of his career, he focused on French philosophy, before turning to moral and political philosophy. May has been teaching moral and political philosophy for over thirty years, beginning as a graduate instructor at Penn State before becoming a visiting assistant professor at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.[1] May has taught at Clemson since 1991, and he currently teaches as the Class of 1941 Memorial Professor of Philosophy.[4] May also teaches philosophy to incarcerated people.[5]
Art academic Allan Antliff described May's 1994 The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism as "seminal,” and he credited the book with introducing "post-structuralist anarchism,” later abbreviated as "post-anarchism.”[6] May has published works on major poststructuralist philosophers, including Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault.[7][8] He also wrote books on more general topics accessible to the general reader, including Death,[9]Our Practices, Our Selves, or, What It Means to Be Human,[10]Friendship in an Age of Economics: Resisting the Forces of Neoliberalism,[11]A Significant Life: Human Meaning in a Silent Universe,[12]A Fragile Life: Accepting Our Vulnerability.[13]
Friendship in an Age of Economics: Resisting the Forces of Neoliberalism (2014). New York: Lexington Books. ISBN978-0-739-19284-9.
A Significant Life: Human Meaning in a Silent Universe (2015). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN978-0-226-23567-7.
Nonviolent Resistance: A Philosophical Introduction (2015). Cambridge: Polity Books. ISBN978-0-745-67118-5.
A Fragile Life: Accepting Our Vulnerability (2017). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN978-0-226-43995-2.
A Decent Life: Morality for the Rest of Us (2019). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN978-0-226-60974-4.
Exploring the Philosophy of Death and Dying: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives, Chapter 21: Death, Mortality, and Meaning (December 31, 2020, 1st Edition). Publisher: Routledge.
Should We Go Extinct?: A Philosophical Dilemma for Our Unbearable Times (2024). New York, Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-593-79872-0.
^Fillion, Réal (April 1, 2010). "Our Practices, Our Selves, or, What It Means to Be Human". Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review. 42 (1): 150–153. doi:10.1017/S0012217300004273. S2CID170352140.