Introduction
I am a historian of early modern Europe at the University of Oxford. I studied History at the University of Bristol before coming to Oxford for graduate study. My doctoral research examined the literary and philosophical culture of sixteenth-century Europe, with a particular focus on France. This research is currently being revised as a monograph for Oxford University Press. I took up my post at The Queen’s College in 2023.
Teaching
Teaching is one of the greatest privileges of being an historian. It is also among the most rewarding. I teach across a broad range of subjects, introducing students to the social, cultural, and political history of early modern Europe, and covering topics such as the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution. I also teach global history, exploring the great territorial empires of the early modern world before the emergence of Western global predominance, with particular attention to the Ottoman, Mughal, Chinese, and Japanese empires. Alongside these subjects, I teach the history of ideas, tracing major philosophical traditions from Plato and Aristotle to Marx, Weber, and Foucault.
Most of my teaching is through undergraduate outline papers in British, European, and Global History 1400-1700. I also contribute to the teaching of historiography, historical methods, and the history of ideas within the college. Outside of college, I teach and supervise graduate students on the strand for Early Modern History.
Research
My research focuses on the cultural and intellectual history of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. My first monograph, accepted by Oxford University Press, explores the transformation of Renaissance humanism and its relationship to the emergence of literature as a distinct mode of thought and self-reflection. My next major project is a cultural and gender history of character and temperament in early modern France. This new project seeks to recover the voices of those who struggled-for-words, the inaction of the timid, and the inglorious characters of war and colonial exploration.