Areas of Expertise:
- British literature c. 1600-1815
- The Enlightenment in Britain
- Philosophy of fiction
- Early modern history and philosophy of science
- US and transatlantic literature to 1815
My research takes the history of British literature from roughly 1600-1815 as a basis for understanding how we frame and organize knowledge and how fact, fiction, and inference work together in the various types of writing we have called “literature”: not only fiction and poetry, but also scientific atlases, political pamphlets, correspondences, and travelogues. I bring literature (broadly defined) into conversation with history and philosophy, particularly the history and philosophy of science. I treat the works of literature I study mainly as discursive documents of ideas that tell us useful things about history, philosophy, science, and political theory.
