I am a cultural historian of Western Europe in the transition from the pre-modern to the modern, with a focus on the "long" eighteenth century. Much of my work tries to understand what the terms in the previous sentence actually mean.What are the meaning and characteristics of modernity? How distant are we from our "pre-modern" or "early-modern" ancestors? My previous work took apart and then put together again some key narratives that the modern west tells about itself: the rise of class society and especially the middle class; the emergence of the modern individual or modern self; the supposed retreat of God on the road to modernity. In all cases I asked where do these narratives come from and what in fact were the historical developments that stood behind them (which were rarely those they claimed to represent). In terms of methodology, I began with what was then called "the linguistic turn", spent a decade and a half in materials at the interface between history and literature, and more recently moved to the borderland between history and art. My current work expands through the study of material objects and art to a global perspective on the early modern period . Read more
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Early modern European history
Modern European history to 1900
Art and history
Material culture
Cultural history
History of Britain
History of Venice
History of Photography in the Middle East
