I am a specialist in Romanticism and the Gothic. My doctoral research concerns the oubliette, a vertically enclosed dungeon from which unassisted escape is impossible, and whose name is suggestively tied to the French verb oublier [to forget]. I posit that the oubliette circulated as a carceral trope within and beyond the traditional canon of Gothic writing in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and was chiefly responsible for the proliferation of Gothic conventions throughout the Atlantic World, including an array of texts associated with the Black Atlantic. For more information on my research, please visit my website.

I also serve as Managing Editor for the journal Eighteenth-Century Studies, under the leadership of Editor Ramesh Mallipeddi. Eighteenth-Century Studies is committed to publishing the best current writing on all aspects of eighteenth-century culture. The journal is the official publication of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS).

In addition to my research, I am currently at work on a novel, Alain, about an encounter between a journalist and a hustler who are mutually haunted by tales of loss and sadism.