Education: B.S.E., Duke University
M.A.L.S., Weleyan University (1991)
M.A., Purdue University (1993)
M.Phil., Ph.D., Yale University (1998)

Interests: American and African American Literature and Culture (especially the 19th century); Slavery and Abolitionism; Photography; Protest Literature; Autobiography.

Selected Works:
Picturing Frederick Douglass:  An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century's Most Photographed American (co-authored with Zoe Trodd and Celeste-Marie Bernier); The Battle Hymn of the Republic:  A Biography of the Song That Marches On (co-authored with Benjamin Soskis); GIANTS:  The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln; The Black Hearts of Men:  Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race; "Frederick Douglass and the Aesthetics of Freedom," Raritan 25:1; "Remembering the Abolitionists and the Meanings of Freedom," in Rethinking American Emancipation.

Curatorial:
One Life: Frederick Douglass (National Portrait Gallery, 2023); Picturing Frederick Douglass (Museum of African-American History, Boston, 2016-17); Boston's Crusade Against Slavery, with Peter Accardo, Ryan McNabb, and Harvard College Students (Houghton Library, 2013); WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY (Advisor & Contributor: MFA Houston, Annenberg Space for Photography, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Brooklyn Museum, 2012-13).

I welcome conversation with students from all backgrounds.