I am a historian of early modern Europe, with a particular interest in Rome and Italy, although my research ranges across Western Europe. Trained as a historian of science, my research focuses on what might be called (anachronistically) the history of the social or human sciences. As such I locate myself at the intersection of the subfields of intellectual history and history of science—an especially fertile territory in the early modern period, when European scholars did not yet respect the disciplinary boundaries that emerged in the nineteenth century. My book, Egyptian Oedipus: Athanasius Kircher and the Secrets of Antiquity, was published by the University of Chicago Press in March 2013. My next major research project is a study of the early modern origins of Orientalist scholarship focusing on Rome as a Mediterranean entrepôt for the circulation of knowledge between Christian and Islamic societies.

Research Interests:

Early modern Europe, especially Italy and Rome; intellectual history; history of science; history of knowledge

Select Publications:

Egyptian Oedipus: Athanasius Kircher and the Secrets of Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013).

"Athanasius Kircher and the Hieroglyphic Sphinx," Public Domain Review (2013).

"John Spencer and the Perils of Sacred Philology," Past and Present (2012): 129–163.

“The Universal History of the Characters of Letters and Languages: An Unknown Manuscript by Athanasius Kircher,” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 56/57 (2011/2012): 305–321.

Review of Lynn Hunt, Margaret C. Jacob, and Wijnand Mijnhardt, The Book That Changed Europe: Picart and Bernard’s ‘Religious Ceremonies of the World’ (Cambridge, 2010), H-France Review, August, 2011.

“Une collaboration dans la cosmopolis catholique: Abraham Ecchellensis et Athanasius Kircher,” in Abraham Ecchellensis, l'orientalisme et la science (XVIIe siècle), ed. B. Heyberger (Brepols: Turnhout, 2010).

“Utility, Edification, and Superstition: Jesuit Censorship and Athanasius Kircher’s Oedipus Aegyptiacus.” In The Jesuits II: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts 1540–1773, ed. John O’Malley, et. al. University of Toronto Press, 2006.

“Oedipus Censored: Censurae of Athanasius Kircher’s Works in the Roman Archive of the Society of Jesus.” Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu (2004): 3–52.

“Four Trees, Some Amulets, and the Seventy-Two Names of God: Kircher Reveals the Kabbalah.” In Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything, ed. Paula Findlen (Routledge, 2004), 149–69.

“The Connoisseur of Magic.” In The Great Art of Knowing: The Baroque Encylopedia of Athanasius Kircher, ed. Daniel Stolzenberg, Stanford: Stanford University Libraries, 2001.

Edited book: The Great Art of Knowing: The Baroque Encyclopedia of Athanasius Kircher (Stanford: Stanford University Libraries, 2001).