His recent work focuses on adapting the critical language of material culture studies to deal with "things" that were once alive (plants, animals, fungi) and takes the form of a book with the working title: The Multi-Species Impression: Renaissance / Organics. Research for this project has been sponsored by, among others, a long-term NEH fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC (2006-2007) and a Franklin Research Award from the American Philosophical Society (2007).