Welcome!

This is my home page, giving an overview of my research, teaching, and digital humanities projects. My research specialty is nineteenth-century France, and I am currently working on the development of primary education in the western French city of Angers.

Upcoming Talk:
"Commonwealth: A Short History of Social Contract Theory"

Monday, 27 February 2012, 5:00pm - 7:00pm at the UAA Campus Bookstore

I will sitting in on a panel discussing The Social Contract Today, looking at the challenges to social contract theory created by the War on Terror, efforts to police the Internet, and corporate personhood.

Joining me on the committee will be Alan Boraas (Anthropology) , Jason Brandeis (Justice Center), Terrence Kelly (Philosophy), and acting as moderator Paola Banchero (Journalism and Public Communications).
 

Institutions and Power in Nineteenth-Century
French Literature and Culture Now Available

My latest essay, "L'État comme propriétaire? Schools as Property in Nineteenth-Century France," is included in the volume Institutions and Power in Nineteenth-Century French Literature and Culture, edited by David Evans and Kate Griffiths (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi Press, 2011). The volume contains essays drawn from a conference hosted by the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes at FitzWilliam College, Cambridge University in 2007.

My contribution examines how government policy early in the nineteenth century granted a significant amount of management rights to private organizations or individuals who financed schools, effectively making schools a form of property. This conceptualization provided the basis for an effective legal challenge against state efforts to gain control over French primary education throughout the century.

Office Hours (Admin 147B)
SPRING 2012 SCHEDULE: T-Th 10:00am - 11:00pm; M- W 4:00pm-5:00pm & by appointment