Areas of Research/Interest: Cultural history of modern France; memory and history; territorial identities; astrology and mass culture.

Fellowships/Honors: Laurence Wylie Prize in French Cultural Studies (best book published 2003-05), 2006; Golden Dozen Teaching Award, 2006; Franklin Research Grant, 2004; Bernadotte E. Schmitt Grant, 2004; Faculty fellow, Remarque Institute, 2004; Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History (for distinguished book on America or Europe), 2003; William Koren Jr. Prize (year's best article in French history), 2001; Ph.D. awarded with distinction, U. of Chicago, 1997; Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Dissertation-Year Fellowship, 1996; Chateaubriand Fellowship for research in France, 1994.

Select Publications:

Why France? American Historians Reflect on an Enduring Fascination, edited with Laura Lee Downs. Cornell University Press, 2007; translation forthcoming from Editions du Seuil, 2007.

In Praise of Modest Men: Self-Display and Self-Effacement in Nineteenth-Century France," in French History 20, no. 3. (2006)

"L'état français et le culte malaisé des souvenirs locaux, 1830-1880" Revue d'histoire du XIXe siécle (2004)

L'impossible présence de l'historien. French Politics, Culture & Society. (2004)

The Pride of Place: Local Memories and Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century France. Cornell University Press. (2003)

Une France locale: The Local Past in Recent French Scholarship. French Historical Studies. (2003)

Town, Nation, or Humanity? Festive Delineations of Place and Past in Northern France, 1825-1865. Journal of Modern History. (2000)

La représentation historique du pays, entre l'état et la société civile. Romantisme. (2000)