I love nineteenth-century history. I go through life wondering what the Great Stink of 1858 in London actually smelled like, and haunted by the knowledge that Jeremy Bentham’s preserved skeleton is sitting upright in a cabinet on the University College London campus. (His head is secured in its own box.) Sometimes I’m accused of being a Victorian ghost—but I’m a friendly spirit.
I have a B.A. in History and English from the University of Missouri, and a Ph.D. in English (Victorian Literature) from the University of California-Berkeley. My doctoral dissertation presents an untold history of the nineteenth-century British women’s rights movement, articulated through a history of literary genre. I am especially interested in the ways that Gothic literature shaped Victorian legal and political theory, and how nineteenth-century periodicals provided a space where readers, theorists, and activists could question the boundaries between fact and fiction while definitions of legal rights and political categories were being rewritten. I highlight figures including Harriet Martineau, Margaret Oliphant, Caroline Norton, and Emma Robinson, all prolific writers who crossed generic boundaries and found creative ways to engage with a legal system that confined them to secondary (or even technically nonexistent) roles.
As a public historian, I believe in making these stories widely known and available outside academia. I love putting my research skills and historical knowledge to use on behalf of museums and other institutions, especially by developing creative programming to highlight histories that are hidden in plain sight.
I am also an avid writer with an enthusiasm for obscure, unsettling facts and biographical detail. I have published on topics including Victorian divorce law, opera, and the women’s rights movement. See my “Writing” page for more information.
