AV俱乐部

Research and Writing

My early research and publications focused on intersections between historical and fictional writing in 19th-century Britain. The major result of this work was my first book,听Gender, Genre, and Victorian Historical Writing. I have also done research drawing together contemporary work on fiction and ethics and Victorian theorizing about the novel; this work led to my essays 鈥淭he Soul of Art: Victorian Ethical Criticism鈥� and 鈥淭he Moral Life of聽Middlemarch: Martha Nussbaum and George Eliot鈥檚 Philosophical Fiction, as well as to my second book, the anthology聽The Victorian Art of Fiction: 19th-Century Essays on the Novel. For the past few years I have been particularly interested in bridging the divide between academic criticism and the broader sphere of reading and critical inquiry. From 2010 to 2017 I was an editor and regular contributor at the online literary journal聽Open Letters Monthly; I have also published reviews and essays in other venues including the聽Times Literary Supplement,听Quill & Quire,听Canadian Notes and Queries, and聽The Los Angeles Review of Books. I am currently working on a book project about 19th- and early 20th-century women writers of 鈥榥ovels with a purpose.鈥� For more information, including a full list of my published essays and reviews and my full curriculum vitae, visit .

Teaching

My main undergraduate and graduate teaching area is Victorian literature. In addition to our two classes on the 19^th-century novel, I regularly offer upper-level seminars on the Victorian 鈥榳oman question鈥� and Victorian 鈥榮ensation fiction,鈥� and graduate seminars on Victorian women writers and George Eliot. Another main teaching interest of mine is mystery and detective fiction: I frequently offer both a survey of developments in the genre from Poe to the present and an upper-level seminar focused more narrowly on women and detective fiction. I have supervised MA and Ph.D. theses on a wide range of 19th-century British literature from Jane Austen to Wilkie Collins.

Selected Publications

• Widening the Skirts of Light: Essays on George Eliot (Pier Glass Press, 2019)
• Middlemarch for Book Clubs (Pier Glass Press, 2016)
• Gender, Genre, and Victorian Historical Writing聽(Garland, 1998).
• The Victorian Art of Fiction: 19^th-Century Essays on the Novel. (Broadview, 2009).
• 'The Soul of Art': Understanding Victorian Ethical Criticism,"聽English Studies in Canada聽聽31:2-3 (June-September 2005).
• 鈥淭he Moral Life of聽Middlemarch: Martha Nussbaum and George Eliot鈥檚 Philosophical Fiction.鈥澛�Philosophy and Literature聽30:1 (April 2006).
• 鈥淪cholarship 2.0: Blogging and/as Academic Practice.鈥澛犅�17:3 (September 2012).

In The Media

• Interview for " (January 2024)
• Interview for (November 2019)