In addition, Bell served as Director of UW-Madison's Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems (CIAS) from 2011 to 2019.

He is also the author of Childerley: Nature and Morality in a Country Village, which won the 1995 Best Book Award[2] in the Sociology of Culture from the American Sociological Association, and of Farming for Us All: Practical Agriculture and the Cultivation of Sustainability, which won an Outstanding Academic Title[3] award from the American Library Association.

Drawing on the dialogic philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin, Bell first developed the notion of "mutlilogics" in The Strange Music of Social Life (Temple, 2011).

Ten scholars respond in the book, including Judith Blau, John Levi Martin, Andrew Abbott, Shamus Khan, Diana Crane, Vanina Leschziner, and Marc Steinberg.

Michael Bell is a mandolinist, guitarist and composer of grassroots and classical music, and has appeared with the Barn Owl Band on A Prairie Home Companion.