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Specialization

I specialize in the study of Renaissance or early modern literature, history, and theology, with a particular focus on the writings and historical, cultural, and intellectual context of John Milton and his contemporaries. In 2015, I also announced my discovery of what now stands as the earliest known draft of the King James Bible, which was first published in 1611 and remains the most widely read work of English writing in the history of the language.

I have been supported by a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a Rhodes Scholarship, and prominent coverage of my work has been featured by such places as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, MSNBC, The Guardian, The Times (U.K.), and other media outlets around the world.

In 2019, I was named a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellow.

I also recently became a children's book author. Two children's picture books I wrote — one entitled THE MUSIC IN WORDS (illustrated by Hadas Hayun) and the other entitled ALMOST (illustrated by Taeeun Yoo) — are forthcoming in 2027 and 2028 respectively, both to be published by Rocky Ponds Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

SCHOLARLY BOOKS-IN-PROGRESS

Shadows of Things to Come: The Rise of Early Modern Biblical Typology (expected completion 2026).

Patchwork Writing Practices Beyond the Early Modern Playhouse (under contract with Cambridge University Press, as part of the Cambridge Elements in Shakespeare and Text series, ed. Claire M. L. Bourne and Rory Loughnane; expected completion 2027).

Signifying Shadows: Milton, Early Modern Biblical Typology, and the Writer’s Mind at Work (expected completion 2028).

The King James Bible’s Earliest Known Draft: The Text, the Translator, and the Translation That Would Live Forever (expected completion 2030).

EDITED COLLECTIONS

Co-Editor, with Esther van Raamsdonk, “Precarious Milton: Literature, History, and the Future of a Field in Crisis”, a special of Milton Studies 68.1, consisting of essays entirely by contingent, “precariously employed,” or unemployed scholars (forthcoming Spring 2026).

ARTICLES AND ESSAYS

“Punctuation & the Drafting of the King James Bible”, in Elizabeth M. Bonapfel, Mark Faulkner, Jeffrey Gutierrez, and John Lennard (eds.), A History of Punctuation in English Literature, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

“The Earliest Known Draft of the King James Bible: Samuel Ward’s Draft of 1 Esdras and Wisdom 3-4”, in Mordechai Feingold (ed.), Labourers in the Vineyard of the Lord: Scholarship and the Making of the King James Version of the Bible(Leiden: Brill, 2018), 187-265.

“‘Better, as in the Geneva’: The Role of the Geneva Bible in Drafting the King James Version”, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 47.3, a special issue on “The Bible and English Readers”, ed. Thomas Fulton (September 2017), 517-43.
· Journal issue co-winner of the 2018 Best Special Issue Award from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.

“Fruit of Good Labours: The Earliest Known Draft of the King James Bible”, The Times Literary Supplement (16 October 2015), 14-15.

“Milton, Zanchius, and the Rhetoric of Belated Reading”, Milton Quarterly 47.4 (December 2013), 199-219.

“Milton and the Conformable Puritanism of Richard Stock and Thomas Young”, in Edward Jones (ed.), Young Milton: The Emerging Author, 1620-1642 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 72-103.
· Volume winner of the 2013 Irene Samuel Memorial Award from the Milton Society of America for most distinguished collection of essays pertaining to the study of Milton

“Reconstructing Milton’s Lost Index Theologicus: The Genesis and Usage of an Anti-Bellarmine, Theological Commonplace Book”, Milton Studies 52 (2011), 187-219.

REVIEWS

Review of Thomas Fulton, The Book of Books: Biblical Interpretation, Literary Culture, and the Political Imagination from Erasmus to Milton (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021), in Modern Philology 120.2 (November 2022), E20-E29.

Review of Ann Baynes Coiro and Thomas Fulton (eds.), Rethinking Historicism from Shakespeare to Milton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), in Milton Quarterly 49.2 (May 2015), 137-43.

Review of Angela Leighton, On Form: Poetry, Aestheticism, and the Legacy of a Word (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), in The Tennyson Research Bulletin 9:2 (2008), 221-28.

DIGITAL HUMANITIES PROJECTS

Introduction and Bibliography for Digitized Version of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, MS Ward B, for Cambridge Digital Library, University of Cambridge (published February 2017).

Resume/CV

Office Hours

Fall

Tuesday

3:00 pm - 5:00 pm

or by Zoom Appointment

Spring

Tuesday

1:00 pm - 2:30 pm

7:00 pm - 7:30 pm

or by Zoom Appointment

Links

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