His research and teaching focus on literature, science, and aesthetics in the Victorian period and early twentieth century. Particular areas of interest include nineteenth-century sciences of mind and emotion; aestheticism and decadence in a global context; and speculative and non-realist fiction, including gothic, science fiction, utopia, and romance. His approach to the period is oriented by critical traditions in aesthetic and affect theory, science studies, and the environmental humanities. He is currently working on a book, The Outward Mind: Materialist Aesthetics in Victorian Science and Literature, which explores how Victorian sciences of mind and emotion generated new and controversial explanations of art, literature, and beauty.