I am a historian of 19th and 20th century Britain and Ireland, which I approach using postcolonial and queer methodologies. At the broadest level, I am interested in collectives: how people dream up, live in, and dissolve communities, and how, in doing so, they remake their own worlds.

I’ve written about Irishness in the aftermath of the Irish Revolution, the nature of historical queerness and transness, and the international circulation of ideas about economic co-operation. I’m currently working on a micro-history of Irish cooperative creameries, which, I think, can tell us a lot about how to imagine alternatives to modern capitalism.

I am an associate professor in the History Department at the University of Birmingham. I earned my PhD from Brown University and spent several years working in the History & Literature program at Harvard University. My personal pronouns are they/them/theirs.

I write a newsletter about global detective fiction (and other things on my mind) here.

I am the author of two books.

The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and Her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women (November 2019, Basic Books [US] & Little, Brown [UK]).

Ireland and the Irish in Interwar England (May 2014, Cambridge University Press)