About
Historian of sixteenth-century natural history focusing on the earliest accounts of American animals in European literature. My current project focuses on the French cosmographer André Thevet (1516-1590) whose 1557 book Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique introduced the three-toed sloth to the written word. I seek to apply modern scientific studies to these Renaissance natural histories to better understand what is scientifically accurate about these older texts based on the best evidence we have today of these animals.
My dissertation is currently titled “Understanding the Sauvage in André Thevet’s Brazil: 1555–1590.” It has developed into a study of how the concept of the sauvage, as defined in Middle French, was used to assess and define the Americas and other worlds seen to be new to Europeans in the middle of the sixteenth century with the particular examples of Brazil and the Tupinambá as a land & its people defined by its Atlantic Forest, the animals that lived within, and how this term was adapted to pejoratively describe other Europeans.
I currently live in Kansas City, Missouri in the United States. Education
- Ph.D. in History, Binghamton University, anticipated 2025.
- M.A. in History, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2019.
- M.A. with Merit in International Relations and Democratic Politics, University of Westminster, 2016.
- B.A. in History and Theology with minors in French and Philosophy, Rockhurst University, 2015.
Publications
Peer-Reviewed Articles & Chapters (in development)
- “A Sloth in the First French Colony in the Americas,” for Terrae Incognitae 57, no. 3 (2025).
- “Do You Believe in Magic? Thevet’s Brazil and Shakespeare’s Tempest,” in William Shakespeare: Tensions and Tempest, edited by Francis Mickus, (Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, 2025).
- “Thevet’s Ascension Island Aponar as the Confluence of Auks and Penguins.” (under review)
- “Pepper-Birds: Toucans as Nature Transformed into Economic Commodity.” In Environment and Economy in the Global Renaissance, eds. Bob Fredona, Caroline Elizabeth Murphy, and Sophus Reinert. University of Delaware Press. (under review
- “Cosmographic Singularities: André Thevet as a Collector of American Exotica (1556-1590).” (under review)
Book Reviews
- “Locusts of Power: Borders, Empire, and Environment in the Modern Middle East by Samuel Dolbee,” The Journal of World History 35, no. 3 (2024): 509-511.
- “New Earth Histories: Geo-Cosmologies and the Making of the Modern World edited by Alison Bashford, Emily M. Kern, and Adam Bobbette,” The Journal of World History 35, no. 4 (2024).
- “Provenance and Possession: Acquisition from the Portuguese Empire in Renaissance Italy, by K.J.P. Lowe, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2024),” The Journal of World History Journal of World History 36, no. 3 (2025): 496-498.
- “Hoof Beats: How Horses Shaped Human History, by William T. Taylor, (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2024),” The Journal of World History 35, no. 2 (2025): 330-332.
- “Terrae Incognitae: Mapping the Unknown, by Carla Lois, (Leiden: Brill, 2025),” (July 2025): 1–2.
Non-Peer-Reviewed Articles & Blogs
Projects
I am editing my translation of André Thevet’s book Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique using Christophe Plantin’s 1558 edition. The first draft is complete, and now I am applying for postdoctoral fellowships to revise my translation using the Maurice de la Porte 1557 & 1558 editions, the Gabriel Giolito de’ Ferrari 1561 Italian translation, and the Thomas Hacket 1568 English translation.
I am also beginning to consider working on a monograph on the history of sloths in the model of other animal histories (Mark Essig’s Lesser Beasts, Mark Kurlansky’s Cod, & Michael Engelhard’s Ice Bear as models) that will trace the accounts of the different sloth species of Central and South America from their first accounts by Oviedo (2-toed) & Thevet (3-toed) to the present fascination with the animal. Upcoming Talks and Conferences
2026
2025
- History of Science Society, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, 13–16 November 2025.
- Presenting “André Thevet’s Ascension Island Aponar as the Confluence of Auks and Penguins”
- Contributing to “Getting Creative with Research and Funding: Tacit Knowledge Roundtable”
- Sixteenth Century Society, Portland, Oregon, United States. 30 October – 1 November 2025. Presenting “‘Like a Child Afflicted with Sorrow’: Changes in André Thevet’s Sloth Appearance Among Early French Editions.”
- Renaissance Society of America GSAC Graduate Student Lightning Talks Series: The RenAIssance. 12 June 2025. Presenting “Animals Adapting to Changes in Nature: Perceptions of Animal Intelligence in the Renaissance?”
- Renaissance Society of America, Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 20-23 March 2025. Presenting “The Uncertain Catholicism of Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon (1510-1571): Accounts from France Antarctique.”
2024
- History of Science Society, Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico, 7-10 November 2024. Presenting “André Thevet as an Eyewitness to the Transition from Humanism to Science (1554-1590).”
- Sixteenth Century Society, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 31 October – 2 November 2024. Presenting “Sufficiently Strange Beasts: Animals in André Thevet’s Singularites of France Antarctique.“
- Society for the History of Discoveries, San Antonio, Texas, United States, 24-26 October 2024. Presenting “André Thevet’s Cosmography: Synthesizing Eyewitness Accounts on the Borders of Established Knowledge (1554-1590).”
- Collecting, Growing, and Exploring in Early Modernity International Interdisciplinary Workshop, EHESS Paris, France, 11 June 2024. Presenting “Cosmographic Singularities: André Thevet as a Collector of American Exotica (1556-1590).”
- Renaissance Society of America, Chicago, Illinois, United States, 21-23 March 2024. Presenting “Pepper-Birds: Toucans as Nature transformed into Economic Commodity.”
Memberships
- Fellow of the Linnean Society of London
- American Historical Association
- American Catholic Historical Association
- Sixteenth Century Society
- Renaissance Society of America
- Society for the History of Discoveries
- Society for the History of Natural History
- History of Science Society, GECC Communications Committee
- Forum on Early-Modern Empires and Global Interactions
- Animals and Society Institute
- Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
