Prior to coming to Brown, Michal taught at University of Wisconsin-Madison and American University in Cairo. He has taught courses on Russian, Polish, and English literatures from the early modern period through the twentieth-century. His scholarly interests include Nikolai Gogol and his 20th century continuators, Russian and Polish modernism, comparative Slavic history of ideas, especially Neoplatonic currents in Slavic thought, and literary theory. He has published articles on Schulz, Gombrowicz, Wittlin, Vincenz, and others. His book, Phantasms of Matter in Gogol (and Gombrowicz), was published by Dalkey Archive Press in 2008.