Works in Progress

Book-Length Projects

Edited Volume

“Extra Extra! The material History of the Visually Altered Book,” under contract with Penn State University Press

A collection of interdisciplinary essays on the material history of the visually altered book from the medieval period to now, co-edited with Adam Smyth.

Monographs

"Writing’s Maker," under contract with University of Chicago Press

This monograph examines how different models of inscription, record keeping and memory making constituted intermedial forms of life writing for writers of the long eighteenth century. Individual chapters center on different maneuvers and techniques of self-inscription—flourish, grid, fold, and composition—as they arise in interactive book formats of the period, from penmanship manuals and extra-illustrated books to pocket diaries, commonplace books, and scrapbooks. Throughout, the tensions between writing as a process of creativity on one hand, and record-making on the other are considered.

“Like Life"

This book project investigates the materials and aesthetic techniques used to create the semblance of life across different media throughout early modern cultural history. How have human beings throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries attempted to imitate, record and replicate the experience of being alive as embodied subjects in a material world? Like Life is organized around five major attributes and techniques of life-likeness in intermedial experiences and contexts: transparency, voice, movement, depth, and point of view.