Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French literature, Enlightenment philosophy, and contemporary critical theory; psychoanalytic theory, particularly Lacanian psychoanalysis and its relationship to epistemology and to cultural politics. Currently working on a book on early modern French and British prose fiction and its articulation of the body's connection to contemporary continental philosophy.

• "The Boudoir in Philosophy or, Knowing Bodies in French Fiction." Seduction and Sentiment in the Atlantic World, 1600-1800. Eds. Toni Bowers and Tita Chico. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming.
• “Voltaire’s Parrot; or, How to Do Things with Birds.” Modern Language Quarterly, vol. 70, no. 3 (September 2009): 341–362.
• “The Form of Formlessness.” Philological Quarterly, vol. 86, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 205–225 [2009].
• “Unreadable Novels: Towards a Theory of Seventeenth-Century Aristocratic Fiction.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 38, number 2 (2005): 129–146.
• White Men Aren't. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002
• Dangerous Truths and Criminal Passions: The Evolution of the French Novel, 1569-1791. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992.

• Illicit Sex: Identity Politics in Early Modern Europe (with Pat Gill). Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1997.
• "Angels, Dinosaurs, Aliens." Camera Obscura 40-41 (1999)

Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French literature; early modern prose fiction; literary and cultural theory

• Reason and Scandal
• Contemporary French Thought
• Psychoanalysis and Literature
• Early Modern French Fiction

• Robert and Pamela Goergen Award for Distinguished Achievement and Artistry in Undergraduate Teaching
• University Dean's Award for Meritorious Service in PhD Defenses