I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York though in first grade I had the alarming habit of telling my classmates I was British.The shape of things to come perhaps? I also decided in first grade that I wanted to teach when I grew up. While I’m still waiting to grow up, I have been teaching a variety of subjects for almost twenty years at area universities. I now call George Washington University home.

 

 

 

 

My background is in 18th C British Literature, though I seem to have migrated to other disciplines and other times. While the leap from the eighteenth century to today's pop culture may seem incongruous, to my mind it's anything but. The eighteenth century, I'd love to argue, gave birth to popular culture - especially celebrity culture and fan culture - as we know it today.

 

 

I am passionate about my family, my friends, writing, literature, Great Britain, coffee the eighteenth century, traveling – especially to cold dark places, music, John Dunton, artichokes, lobsters, good wine, good cinema, live theatre, Christopher Marlowe, Tom Stoppard, fresh bread, a good cup of tea, chocolate digestive biscuits, fountain pens, Odin, snowy days, and a never to be attained quest for order and simplicity.

If I were not teaching and writing I would either be a chef or a horticulturalist – anything concerned with the growing, preparing and eating of good foods. When I'm not behind my desk I'm usually in the garden or the kitchen. Anthony Bourdain is my hero.