I have a triple research life: in the eighteenth century, in life writing, and in blue humanities. I have published on travel writing, women’s writing, poetry, gender, material culture; on memoirs, letters, diaries and obituaries; the history of smell; urban culture, with an outlet in Strandlines, and visual culture, especially painting, film and photography.

My book Balloon Madness: Flights of Imagination in Britain 1783-1786 (Boydell 2017) explores balloons in literature, material and visual culture. My previous book, Eighteenth-Century Letters and British Culture (Palgrave 2006) won the ESSE Book Award for 2008. I have edited John Gay’s Trivia (1716) and co-edited eight essay collections.

Moving into blue humanities, I was awarded a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (2022-25) to write Underwater Lives: Humans, Species, Ocean (Bloomsbury Academic 2026), which explores life writing by humans underwater, their engagement with other species, and the ocean.

My scholarship has international recognition: in 2022 I was elected to the Academia Europaea, and in 2024, invited to join GLOCAL, a distinguished interdisciplinary network.

I co-edit Palgrave’s series Studies in Life Writing, and I co-directed the Centre for Life-Writing Research at King’s. I am an editor on the European Journal of Life Writing, and a published poet.

Research interests and PhD supervision

I don't supervise any more, but am happy to hear from anyone whose research is relevant to my interests. 

Teaching

I have taught courses on poetry, film, British literature, eighteenth-century travel writing and life writing, Gothic, fiction, London and research skills. I have supervised many PhDs, on a wide range of eighteenth-century subjects. 

Expertise and public engagement

I've presented research on television, on radio and at numerous public events, covering 18C and contemporary topics. In 2011 I re-enacted an eighteenth-century balloon flight for the BBC’s The One Show. As part of the Ego Media research group (2014-19), funded by the ERC to investigate life writing online, I researched digital forms of life writing and co-curated an exhibition, ‘Dear Diary: A Celebration of Diaries and their Digital Descendants’ (Inigo Rooms 26 May-7 July 2017), which led to TV, radio and print discussions. As the Project Director of Strandlines, and the Co-Director of the Centre for Life-Writing Research, I ran many community events and public engagements. My recent work in blue humanities appears in several interviews and podcasts. 

Selected publications

• Underwater Lives: Humans, Species, Ocean (Bloomsbury Academic 2026)
• Underwater Postcards (Shoestring Press 2026)
• 'Here for 450 Million Years, Going Now: Ocean Timelines, Climate Crisis, and Life Writing', Biography, 2024, vol.46, no.4, 753-774
• Balloon Madness: Flights of Imagination, 1783-1786 (Boydell and Brewer 2017)
• Eighteenth-Century Letters and British Culture (Palgrave 2006) winner of the ESSE Book Award 2008