I am a historian and writer focused on telling stories about cross-cultural interactions in the Atlantic World during the sixteenth century.
I am a doctoral candidate in History at Binghamton University, SUNY, in Upstate New York. My research focuses on how European observations of brazilwood (Paubrasilia echinata), the maned sloth (Bradypus crinitus), and various tropical birds native to coastal Brazil expanded the European scientific worldview and forced authors to reassess how they understood their own world. I earned my MA in History at the University of Missouri–Kansas City (2019), and my MA in International Relations and Democratic Politics at the University of Westminster (2016), and my BA in History and Theology, with French and Philosophy minors, at Rockhurst University (2015).
I’m fascinated by how humanity has viewed the rest of nature, and in turn how the natural world has left a strong impact upon our own. I strive to bring my work out into the public focus, and I want to tell stories, invite people to think, and make them happy.
About Me
I study and write on sixteenth century Atlantic History, with strong influences on Environmental History, Renaissance Humanism, and colonialism. More than anything, I am fascinated by how these disparate fields intersect and weave a far more intricate tapestry through which we can better understand how travel narratives about the Americas fit into the European world within which they were written. I am also a novelist, and have self-published three books to date, Travels in Time Across Europe (2017), The Adventures of Horatio Woosencraft and Other Stories (2017), and Erasmus Plumwood (2018).
I was born in suburban Chicagoland, but grew up on a farm in Kansas City, Kansas. From a very early age I’ve loved learning about history, as well as visiting art galleries, natural history museums and zoos. In recent years I’ve worked to bring together my varied interests into a research topic that could consider all those things that I’ve been fascinated by.
I earned my BA in History and Theology with minors in French and Philosophy from Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri, before moving to London to work on my first MA in International Relations and Democratic Politics at the University of Westminster. After a year considering what I wanted to do professionally, I decided to undertake a second MA, returning to my original field of History, at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. Today I am a PhD Candidate in History at Binghamton University.
When not hard at work researching and writing, I enjoy traveling. I love getting to visit many of the wonderful natural history and art museums around the globe whenever I have a chance.
Publications
Dissertation: “André Thevet’s Brazil in Sixteenth-Century French Natural History,” advised by Dr. Richard Mackenney, Ph.D. Anticipated defense in 2024.
“The ‘Sufficiently Strange’ Sloth,” EPOCH Magazine 16 (June 2024): read here.
“Amerindians in Brazil” in South America: From European Contact to Independence. Edited by H. Michael Tarver. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio. Forthcoming 2024.
“The Bounty of Thevet’s Brazil and ‘Earth’s increase, foison plenty’ in The Tempest” in William Shakespeare: Tensions and Tempest. Edited by Francis Mickus. Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press. Forthcoming 2025.
English translation of André Thevet. Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique. Antwerp: Christophe Plantin, 1558. In Development.
Speaking and Events
Upcoming Events
7–10 November 2024: 2024 History of Science Society Annual Meeting. Fiesta Americana Resort Mérida, Paseo Montejo no. 451, esq. Avienda Colón, Col. Centro 970000, Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico.
Presenting “André Thevet as an Eyewitness to the Transition from Humanism to Science (1554-1590).”
31 October – 2 November 2024: 2024 Annual Meeting of the Sixteenth Century Society (SCS). Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, 123 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario MH5 2M9, Canada.
Presenting “‘Sufficiently Strange Beasts’: Animals in André Thevet's Singularites of France Antarctique.”
24–26 October 2024: 65th Annual Meeting of the Society for the History of Discoveries. Menger Hotel, 204 Alamo Plaza, San Antonio, Texas 78205, United States.
Presenting “André Thevet's Cosmography: Synthesizing Eyewitness Accounts on the Borders of Established Knowledge (1554-1590)”
Past Events
11 June 2024: Collecting, Growing, and Exploring in Early Modernity International Interdisciplinary Workshop. EPHE Sorbonne, salle J. Delamarre D059, Paris.
Presenting “Cosmographic Singularities: André Thevet as a Collector of American Exotica (1556-1590)"
21–23 March 2024: 2024 Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America (RSA). Palmer House Hilton Hotel, Chicago, Illinois. 17 E. Monroe St., Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Presented "Pepper-Birds: Toucans as Nature transformed into Economic Commodity"
26–29 October 2023: 2023 Annual Meeting of the Sixteenth Century Society (SCS). Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel, 202 E. Pratt St., Baltimore, Maryland, United States.
Presented "The Taxonomic Conservation of Tupinambá Ritual Artifacts in the French Royal Cabinets of Curiosities (1555-1575)"
20–21 October 2023: Integrating the History and Philosophy of Biodiversity. Narratives of Diversity, Extinction, Conflict and Value. Museum of Natural Sciences, Brussels, Belgium.
Presented “Royal Monopolies and the Ineffective Colonial Conservation of the Brazilwood Tree (1500-1570)”
4–6 October 2023: (Un)Common Worlds III Human-Animal Studies Conference. University of Oulu, Finland and the University of Derby, United Kingdom.
Presented "Strangers in a Strange World: The Anthropocene in André Thevet's Cosmos 1557-1580”
9–11 March 2023: 2023 Renaissance Society of America (RSA) Annual Conference. Caribe Hilton, 1 Calle San Gerónimo, San Juan 00901, Puerto Rico.
Presented "Confronting the Three-toed Sloth: The Taxonomy of a Brazilian Singularity"
4 November 2022: 2022 Renaissance Society of America (RSA) Online Graduate Student Lightning Talks: Rethinking the Global Renaissance.
Presented “A Transatlantic Feather Rustling: Belon, Thevet, and Gessner’s Initial Classification of the Toucan as a Brazilian Magpie”
27–30 October 2022: Annual Meeting of the Sixteenth Century Society (SCS). Hyatt Regency Minneapolis, 1300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.
Presented “The Beast that Lives Only on Air: André Thevet’s Sloth”
29 April 2022: Friday Evening Program at the Kopernik Observatory and Science Center, 698 Underwood Rd, Vestal, New York, United States.
28-31 October 2021: Annual Meeting of the Sixteenth Century Society (SCS). Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel, 1 Park Blvd., San Diego, California, United States.
Presented “French Perspectives on Religion and Marriage in Tupinambá Society”
9–10 April 2021: 26th Annual James A. Barnes Graduate History Conference, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
Presented “André Thevet’s Brazil: Understanding the Cosmographer as a Humanist Reader.”
27 March 2020: 2020 Syracuse Graduate History Conference. Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, United States.
Presented “Identity and Legacy: The Tupinambá of Brazil and the Cannibals of Early Modern French Literature.”
17-20 October 2019: 50th Anniversary Annual Meeting of the Sixteenth Century Society (SCS). Hyatt Regency St. Louis at the Arch, 315 Chestnut St., St. Louis, Missouri, United States.
Presented “Humanist Education of Margaret Roper”
Spring 2019: Exploring Ancient Ireland. Series of Public Lectures, Mid-Continent Public Library Camden Point, Raytown, Smithville, & Independence, Missouri, United States.
3-6 January 2019: Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA). Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Presented “Erasmus’s Enchiridion militis Christiani and the Humanist Knight in early-sixteenth century England”
14-16 September 2018: 65th Annual Meeting of the Midwest Conference on British Studies (MWCBS). University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, United States.
Presented “A Codicological Study of the 1523 English manuscript translation of Erasmus’s Enchiridion militis Christiani“
31 August 2018, 18:00: The History of Irish Immigrants in Major League Baseball. The Culture Stage at the Kansas City Irish Fest, Crown Center, Kansas City, Missouri, United States.
Tickets for festival admission can be found at the KC Irish Fest website.
6 June 2018: 4th Annual Meeting of the Midwestern History Association. Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States.
Presented “The Northwest Ordinance, Partisan Politics, Frontier Policy, and the Growth of the Union in the Early Republic”
13-15 April 2018: Spring meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA). Mount Saint Mary’s University, Emmitsburg, Maryland, United States.
Presented “Perspectives on the French Counter-Reformation”
