CV
Academic Appointments
Assistant Professor of Early Modern European History, Texas Christian University (2024– )
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Wolf Humanities Center; Lecturer, History and Sociology of Science Department, University of Pennsylvania (2023–24)
David Bartholomae Postdoctoral Fellow, Writing Program, Rutgers University (2022–23)
Perkins-Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow, Society of Fellows; Lecturer, Department of History, Princeton University (2019–22)
Education
2019 PhD, History, Rutgers University
2011 MA, History, The University of Alabama
2005 BA, English, The University of Alabama, summa cum laude
Publications
Academic Monographs
Reading Practice: The Pursuit of Natural Knowledge from Manuscript to Print (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, August 2024)
Peer-Reviewed Articles
“The ‘Sururgia’ of Nicholas Neesbett: Writing Medical Authority in Later Medieval England,” Social History of Medicine, 35, no. 1 (February 2022): 144–169. Access the article here.
* Winner, 2023 J. Worth Estes Prize, American Association for the History of Medicine
“‘Here is a good boke to lerne’: Practical books, the coming of the press, and the search for knowledge, ca. 1400–1560,” Journal of British Studies 58, no. 2 (April 2019): 259–288. Access the article here.
* Honorable Mention, 2020 Essay Prize, Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography, Rare Book School
Guest Editor
Co-editor (with Hannah Frydman) of a special forum of articles, “Reproductive Rights Beyond Roe,” _Gender & History__ 36, no. 2 (2024): 289–333. (Contributors: Bibia Pavard, Brooke Lansing Mai, Hannah Stamler) Access the special forum here.
Editions and Translations
Pamela Smith et al., eds.,
Secrets of Craft and Nature in Renaissance France: A Digital Critical Edition and English Translation of Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Fr. 640,
https://edition640.makingandknowing.org, launched February 6, 2020.
* Winner, 2021 Eugene S. Ferguson Prize, Society for the History of Technology
Invited Essays
Co-author (with Hannah Frydman), “Introduction: Histories of Abortion Beyond Roe,” Gender & History 36, no. 2 (Summer 2024): 289–294. Access the essay here.
“How to Cure a Horse, or, the Difference Between the Knowledge of Experience and the Experience of Knowledge,” Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 52, no. 4 (2022): 547–552. Access the essay here.
Works in Progress
Peer-reviewed articles
“Of Plants and Providence: Materia medica and Bodily Difference in a Global Resource Landscape,” prepared for the special issue, “Resource Landscapes: Ecologies, Labor, and Investment in the Early Modern World” in Renaissance Quarterly, co-edited by Renée Raphael and Tina Asmussen (revise and resubmit July 2024).
Digital Editions
Old Books, New Science is an initiative to digitally reconstruct the manuscript library of Henry Dyngley, a sixteenth-century English collector of Middle English medical manuscripts. The project seeks to understand why early modern readers collected medieval medical and scientific knowledge in old manuscripts, how generations of readers engaged with these manuscripts over time, and what role these older books played in the development of new epistemologies associated with the scientific revolution. Old Books, New Science is as one of several trial projects associated with EditionCrafter, a publication tool for digital critical editions under development (2022-2024) by the Making and Knowing Project (M&K), Performant Software Solutions, and a number of case-study collaborators. EditionCrafter is designed to be an open-source, customizable publishing tool that will allow users to deploy their own texts, data, and commentary as low-maintenance digital critical editions. For more about this work, see the NSF award announcement: Crafting an Open Source Digital Publication Tool for the History of Science.
Fellowships, Grants, and Awards
External
2024 Paul Oskar Kristeller Fellowship, Renaissance Society of America
2023 J. Worth Estes Prize, American Association for the History of Medicine
2022 Co-collaborator on EditionCrafter, National Science Foundation Grant # 2218218
2020 Honorable Mention, Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography Annual Essay Prize
2018 Dissertation Completion Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies
2018 Grant-in-aid, Folger Shakespeare Library, Faculty Weekend Seminar
2017 Schallek Award, The Medieval Academy of America and the Richard III Society
2016 Grant-in-aid, Folger Shakespeare Library, Researching the Archive Seminar
2015 Director’s Scholarship, Rare Book School, The University of Virginia
Princeton
2020 ‘New Project in the Humanities’ David A. Gardner ’69 Magic Project grant
2020 Research Grant, University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Rutgers
2024 Clark-McClintock-Gershenson Subvention Award, Rutgers History Department
2018 Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellowship, School of Arts & Sciences (Declined)
2017 Special Study Award for Digital Humanities, Graduate School
2016 Mellon Summer Dissertation Research Grant, School of Arts & Sciences
2016 Rutgers Teaching Assistant Professional Development Fund Research Grants
The University of Alabama
2012 Albert Burton Moore Memorial Award for Outstanding Graduate Work in History
2005 Phi Beta Kappa
Conferences, Seminars, & Invited Talks
Invited Research Talks and Presentations
“‘Englishing’ Natural Knowledge: Antiquarianism and Exceptionalism in Elizabethan Science,” University of Minnesota History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Colloquium; September 27, 2024
“Reading Remedy Books: Medical Manuscripts and the Making of a National Medical Tradition,” National Library of Medicine’s History Talks series, Bethesda, MD (online); November 2, 2023
“Plants and Providence: Pharmacology as an Expression of Divine Order and Ethnic Difference,” The Anatomy of Vegetation II: Plants, Experiments and Experience in the Early Modern Period, Vasile Goldiș Western University of Arad, Romania (online); March 30, 2023
“Learning to Look: Imagery Beyond Alchemy in English Manuscripts,” Through a Glass Darkly, an international conference celebrating the opening of an exhibition of the Ripley Scrolls at Princeton University, May 27, 2022
“Reading Practica: A Material History of Ideas,” Seminar in the History of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec (online); March 23, 2022
“The Past and Future in Print,” Working Group on Early Modern History of Science at the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (online); Philadelphia, PA, December 8, 2021
“Prognostications Past and Present: Leonard Digges, Print for Profit, and the Passage of Time in Early Modern England,” New Work in Early Modern Intellectual History: A Virtual Workshop, Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford (online); July 21 and 24, 2020
Campus or Departmental Talks
“Picturing the Natural World,” Early Modern History Workshop, Princeton University, November 17, 2021
“The Sururgia of Nicholas Neesbett,” History of Science Program Seminar, Princeton University, September 7, 2020
“Mimicry in Manuscript: Learning to Write as a Model of Authority in Later Medieval and Early Modern England,” Committee on the Study of Books and Media, Princeton University, March 4, 2020
“From Devotion to Instruction: Reading the book of ‘paynture’ in late medieval England,” Textuality, Materiality, and Reading Practices Working Group, Princeton University, February 6, 2020
Conference Sessions Organized
Organizer, Beyond the ‘Stigma of Print’: Cultivating Women’s Scientific and Medical Expertise in Manuscript; Sponsored by the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender; Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, New Orleans, LA, January 6–9 (postponed to online format, 21 February 2022)
Co-organizer, The State of the Margins: Thirty Years After “Gabriel Harvey and His Livy,” Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Philadelphia, PA, April 2–4, 2021 [Originally scheduled for RSA 2020 but rolled over to virtual RSA 2021 due to Covid-19]
Co-organizer and Chair, Vernacular Knowledge and Learned Tradition in Early Modern England: Movement, Practice, Reception, History of Science Society; Atlanta, GA, November 3–6, 2016
Selected Conference Presentations
Roundtable participant in panel on “Collaborative Futures: Tools for Collaboration from the Making and Knowing Project,” History of Science Society Annual Meeting; Merida, Mexico, November 9, 2024
“Henry Dyngley’s Digital Library: How a New Open-Access Platform is Enabling the Digital Reconstruction of a Sixteenth-Century Manuscript Collection,” International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 9–11, 2024
Participant, roundtable on “Resources Landscapes in the Early Modern World,” Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting; Chicago, IL, March 21, 2024
“Print and the ‘Englishing’ of Medical Knowledge,” Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting; Chicago, IL, March 22, 2024
“New World Materia medica and the Observation of Bodily Difference,” Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting; San Juan, Puerto Rico, March 9–11, 2023
“How to Reconstruct a Network of How-To Knowledge,” Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting; Dublin, Ireland, March 30–April 2, 2022
“The Secrets of Women? Reproductive Medicine in Manuscript and Print,” American Historical Association Annual Meeting; New Orleans, LA, January 6–9, 2022
“Defining the Present: Constructing the ‘Medieval’ in Popular Print,” Renaissance Society of America; Philadelphia, PA, April 2–4, 2020 [Cancelled due to Covid-19]
“Probatum est: Reader marks and the development of scribal practice,” International Congress on Medieval Studies; Kalamazoo, MI, May 9–12, 2019
“Making, Writing, Healing: Craft techniques and cures in Renaissance recipe books,” Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting; Toronto, Canada, March 17–19, 2019
“Consuming the Word: Late Medieval Medical Charms and the Curative Power of Writing,” Bibliography Among the Disciplines Conference, Rare Book School; Philadelphia, October 12–15, 2017
“From Script to Print: Receipt Books and Proprietary Expertise in Early Modern England,” Revisions, the Annual Harvard-Yale Book History Conference; Harvard University, April 28, 2017
“Threads of Time and Strands of Silk: Popular Magic, Astrological Expertise, and Women’s Textile Work in Early Modern England,” History of Science Society; Atlanta, November 3–6, 2016
Seminars
Translation and Encoding Workshop, Making and Knowing Project, Université de Toulouse II—Jean Jaurès, July 2–13, 2018 and June 16–30, 2017
“Image and Knowledge in Early Modern Books,” Faculty Weekend Seminar taught by Daniela Bleichmar (USC); Folger Shakespeare Library, March 9–10, 2018
“Researching the Archive,” year-long dissertation research and writing seminar, taught by Keith Wrightson (Yale) and James Siemon (Boston University); Folger Shakespeare Library, September 2016–April 2017
“Book Production and Social Practice in Early Modern Europe and America,” Rare Book School, taught by Ann Blair and David Hall (Harvard); Harvard University, December 6–11, 2015
Middle French Paleography Workshop, Making and Knowing Project, taught by Marc Smith (École Nationale des Chartes), Columbia University; New York, June 1–19, 2015
Editorial Work
Co-Editor, The Recipes Project: Food, Magic, Art, Science, and Medicine (2018–present)
Editorial Assistant, Speculum: The Journal of the Medieval Academy of America (2015–16)
Courses Taught
Visit the syllabi page for course descriptions and sample syllabi.
Texas Christian University (as Instructor of Record) The World Expanded: Europe, 1348–1789
University of Pennsylvania (as Instructor of Record)
Fertile Bodies: A Cultural History of Reproduction from Antiquity to the Enlightenment
Rutgers University (as Instructor of Record)
Writing for Publication (graduate seminar)
Expository Writing
Basic Composition
Princeton University (as Instructor of Record)
A History of Words: Technologies of Communication from Cuneiform to Coding (Spr 21)
Fertile Bodies: Reproduction from Antiquity to the Enlightenment (Spr 20, 22)
Interdisciplinary Approaches to Western Culture I (Fa 19, 20)
Rutgers University (as Teaching Fellow)
The Crusades
European Development I
The University of Alabama (as Teaching Assistant)
Western Civilization since 1648
American Civilization to 1865
Western Civilization to 1648
American Civilization since 1865
Languages
Latin, French, Middle French, Anglo-Norman, Middle English, German (with dictionary), Spanish (with dictionary)
Medieval and Early Modern Latin, French, and English paleography
Professional Affiliations
Renaissance Society of America
Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender
American Association for the History of Medicine
History of Science Society
American Historical Association