I predominantly work on intellectual history and the history of political thought from circa 1450 to 1800, particularly varieties of republicanism. My current research centres on English republicanism and the English Republic in European and transatlantic context as well as their textual afterlives in the eighteenth century; themes in this work include transnational networks, the intersection of religion and politics, transcultural exchange, gender, race, and exclusion in early modern thought, theories and practices of enslavement and its critique, and the experience of exile.
The aforementioned themes coalesce in my ongoing PhD thesis, ‘Liberty, Virtue, and the Commonwealth of Rights: The Republicanism of Algernon Sidney’ (due for submission in May 2023). My thesis reassesses Sidney’s political, religious, and economic thought in the broader context of his unpublished writings, networks, and activities, variously as a soldier, parliamentarian, diplomat, exile, polemicist, and plotter. I have undertaken research on Sidney in over thirty archives across eight states and this work will introduce a wide range of previously uncited manuscript sources.
Connected to my PhD, my project at the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi explores the reception of Sidney, alongside other English republicans, such as James Harrington, Edmund Ludlow, John Milton, and Henry Neville, in the writings and debates of the Enlightenment, with a focus on France and the states of the Italian peninsular, especially Naples.
I have presented widely, including conferences hosted in France (Rouen), Germany (Darmstadt), Italy (Florence, Turin, Venice), Lithuania (Vilnius), the Netherlands (Leiden), and the United Kingdom (Belfast, Cambridge, Newcastle).
I also have an interest in historical methodology, the history of intellectual history as a discipline, and political theory.
From 2020 to 2022 I worked as an external research assistant in Florence
for projects on identity formation and martial culture in late medieval and early Renaissance Tuscany for Peter Sposato (Indiana University
Kokomo).
Publications
– ‘Democracy in Algernon Sidney’s Discourses concerning government’, in Republicanism and Democracy: Close Friends? , ed. Skadi Siiri Krause and Dirk Jorke (Springer, Cham, 2022), pp. 81-111.
Teaching
I have assisted faculty in the following postgraduate seminars:
– Intellectual and Cultural History (Departmental Seminar, 2019-2020)
– The Circulation of Ideas and Information (Research Seminar, 2019-2020)
In March 2019 I was awarded a ‘Teaching in Higher Education’ certificate from the EUI following the completion of a peer-reviewed special training course with instructors based at the EUI and University College London. As part of this course I prepared and taught a class to other graduate students.