Biography
I work on the theory and history of the novel, with an emphasis on twentieth and twenty first century novels. My work explores how institutions shape (or distort) the production, dissemination, reception, and consecration of art.
My current research project is motivated by a seemingly anodyne observation about the production of post-1945 novels: sections of novels by authors as disparate in tone and time as David Foster Wallace and Alice Munro, Vladmir Nabokov and Tommy Orange, Jennifer Egan and Toni Morrison first appeared in popular magazines like Redbook, The New Yorker, or Playboy before they were published as books. My dissertation, “Assembly Line Fiction,” explores the labor conditions that this ostensibly normative publication trend disguises and considers how this trend has altered the novel’s form since 1945. I argue that the close relationship between major publishing houses and magazines has led to the rise of what I call the “modular novel,” a narrative form that relies on modularity and transposability as structuring principles. My project combines traditional literary critical methods with quantitative tools that allow me to discern patterns at scale.
Before coming to Columbia, I received a BA and an MA from McGill University. My work is supported by a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship. I am a Fellow at Columbia's Maison Française for the 2024-2025 academic year. My writing has appeared in the Oxonian Review, the LA Review of Books, and Public Books.
