Areas of Interest

Cultural and social history, 1500-1800; the history and theory of orality and literacy, especially early modern Europe; the history and theory of historiography, autobiography, and narrative discourse; the history, criticism, and theory of the novel, especially in English; social theory; literary theory; popular culture; material culture

Selected Publications

"John Wesley, Superstar: Periodicity, Celebrity, and the Sensibility of Methodist Society in Wesley's Journal (1740-91)," in Rudolf Dekker, ed., Egodocuments in History. Autobiographical Writing, Personal Identity and Social Environment in Europe, 1000-1900 (Hilversum, the Netherlands: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2002): 137-60.

"The 'Mirror' of the Other: Self-Reflexivity and Self-Identity in Early Modern Religious Biography," in Kaspar von Greyerz, Hans Medick, and Patrice Veit, eds., Von der dargestellten Person zum erinnerten Ich. Europäische Selbstzeugnisse als historische Quelle, (Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 2001): 55-75.

"History with Trouble in Mind." Review essay of John Sutton, Philosophy and Memory Traces: Descartes to Connectionism. In Metascience 9 (2000): 208-18.

Origins of the Individualist Self:  Autobiographical Practice and Self-Identity in England, 1591-1791 (Stanford University Press, 1996; Polity Press, 1997)

"Social Mobility and Middling Self-Identity: The Ethos of  British Autobiographers, 1600-1750," Social History, 20, January 1995

 "Continuity and Change in a Patronage Society: The Social Mobility of British Autobiographers, 1600-1750," Journal of Historical Sociology, 7 (Spring 1994)