About

In my doctoral research, I examined the connections between literature and science in popular magazines of the fin de siècle. In particular, I focussed on the emerging genre of science fiction, arguing that the co-presence of fact and fiction alongside each other in these general magazines created a publishing environment in which SF could thrive. This research eventually became the book Science, Fiction, and the Fin-de-Siècle Periodical Press (2016).

My current research looks at these ideas across a wider time period, focussing on how dinosaurs are articulated in popular culture. Dinosaurs are impossible without a great deal of both close scientific study and abstract imaginative work – I’m investigating the way the relationship between literature and science plays out as the social dinosaur moves through time. I’m currently aided in this by an AHRC Leadership Fellowship, ‘Narrativising Dinosaurs’.

I am also interested in book history, periodical studies, alternate history, imperialism, popular fiction, crime writing, and modernism.