My current research focuses on the aesthetics and politics of the voice in the long nineteenth century. Combining methodologies from history, sound studies and musicology, I trace the evolution of the ‘sound’ of propriety, authority and health as it was constructed by various experts on the voice and performed by public speakers in the nineteenth century.

My wider research interests concern the practices of articulation and embodiment that created modern citizenship in the nineteenth century. Whilst my previous research elucidated aspects of the construction of the citizen self (i.e. masculinity, maturity, dignity, notions of authority and rationality), in my current research on the articulation of ‘vocalized’ identities within modern nations (notably in England, the Low Countries and France, and their respective colonies) the politics of location (including nationalized images of the artistic voice), and socio-cultural embeddedness (e.g. through vocal education for adult and younger non-professionals) come to the fore.

I am currently supervising three PhD theses, on the history of French parliamentary practice, on discourses and experiences of whiteness in contemporary Denmark, and on embodied experiences of landscapes and heritage in Tibet. 

I am happy to supervise research on most aspects of modern European culture and history, especially research concerned with embodied identities, inequalities and human and post-human diversity.

A list of publications predating 2015 can be found here