Rate My Professor Damien Picariello

Damien K. Picariello is Professor of Political Science at the University of South Carolina Sumter, where he serves as Interim Chair of the Division of Arts and Letters, Interim Chair of the Division of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Education, and Director of Faculty, Curricula, and Courses for Dual Enrollment Programs. He earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan in 2014, an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan in 2013, and a B.A. in Political Science with honors from Baruch College in 2008. Picariello teaches broadly across the field of political science, engaging students in topics related to American politics and civic education.

Picariello has contributed significantly to scholarship at the intersection of political thought and popular culture through his editorial work. He edited The Western and Political Thought: A Fistful of Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), The Politics of Horror (Routledge, 2020), and Politics in Gotham: The Batman Universe and Political Thought (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). His publications also include the article "Aeschylus and the Binding of the Tyrant" in Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought (2015). His research received support from the University of South Carolina's 2019 Summer Faculty Research Stipend Award for The Politics of Horror. Picariello was awarded the Williams-Brice-Edwards Professorship in Social Sciences and the 2020/2021 Student Government Association Teacher of the Year Award. He was promoted to the rank of Professor in 2024. In addition to his teaching and research, Picariello organizes the annual Constitution Day program, advances dual enrollment initiatives, and contributes to faculty governance through service on the Palmetto College Campuses Tenure and Promotion Committee, Faculty Senate, and the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education's Advisory Committee on Academic Programs.