Published Work:
Peer-reviewed Articles
"Spinoza's Translation of Margaret Fell and His Portrayal of Judaism in the Theological-Political Treatise." The Seventeenth Century 34, no. 1 (2019): 89-106.
"'Not in their idol-worship, but by labor': The Sabbath and the Book of Isaiah in Samson Agonistes." Milton Studies 60, no. 1-2 (2018): 134-156. (winner of the James Holly Hanford Article Award, given annually by the Milton Society of America for a distinguished article on Milton)
Edited Forum
"Defining Religion in Milton." Co-edited with Stephen Fallon. Religion and Literature 45, no.1 (Spring 2013): 132-208.
Book Reviews
Princely Education in Early Modern Britain, by Aysha Pollnitz. Journal of British Studies 56, no. 3 (2017): 651-52.
Rhetoric, Science, and Magic in Seventeenth-Century England, by Ryan J. Stark. Religion and Literature 43, no. 1 (2011): 199-201.
Work in Progress:
My current book project is titled Remembering the Sabbath: Law, Labor, and Liberty in Seventeenth-Century English Literature. It examines the lively debates about Sabbath-keeping in early modern England and demonstrates that they were not only disputes about the Book of Sports and the decline of “merry England,” as is often supposed, but also discussions about Christianity’s relationship to the Hebrew Bible, the Kabbalah, and Jewish culture. In Jewish teaching, Sabbath regulates rest and labor, celebrates liberation from Egyptian slavery, and functions as a time for weddings and sexual unions. The related sabbatical year and year of jubilee also provide times for the land to lie fallow, debts to be forgiven, and slaves to be released. I show that early modern Christian readers and writers were deeply engaged with these themes in the Sabbath’s heritage and that their study of the Jewish Sabbath shaped their conceptions of rest and labor, liberty and slavery, land use, and marital and sexual unions. I begin the study with the pamphlets of Laudians, Puritans, and religious radicals; move to the lyrics of Robert Herrick and Andrew Marvell; continue on to John Milton’s divorce tracts, Paradise Lost, and Samson Agonistes; and conclude with Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko.
Peer-reviewed Articles
"Spinoza's Translation of Margaret Fell and His Portrayal of Judaism in the Theological-Political Treatise." The Seventeenth Century 34, no. 1 (2019): 89-106.
"'Not in their idol-worship, but by labor': The Sabbath and the Book of Isaiah in Samson Agonistes." Milton Studies 60, no. 1-2 (2018): 134-156. (winner of the James Holly Hanford Article Award, given annually by the Milton Society of America for a distinguished article on Milton)
Edited Forum
"Defining Religion in Milton." Co-edited with Stephen Fallon. Religion and Literature 45, no.1 (Spring 2013): 132-208.
Book Reviews
Princely Education in Early Modern Britain, by Aysha Pollnitz. Journal of British Studies 56, no. 3 (2017): 651-52.
Rhetoric, Science, and Magic in Seventeenth-Century England, by Ryan J. Stark. Religion and Literature 43, no. 1 (2011): 199-201.
Work in Progress:
My current book project is titled Remembering the Sabbath: Law, Labor, and Liberty in Seventeenth-Century English Literature. It examines the lively debates about Sabbath-keeping in early modern England and demonstrates that they were not only disputes about the Book of Sports and the decline of “merry England,” as is often supposed, but also discussions about Christianity’s relationship to the Hebrew Bible, the Kabbalah, and Jewish culture. In Jewish teaching, Sabbath regulates rest and labor, celebrates liberation from Egyptian slavery, and functions as a time for weddings and sexual unions. The related sabbatical year and year of jubilee also provide times for the land to lie fallow, debts to be forgiven, and slaves to be released. I show that early modern Christian readers and writers were deeply engaged with these themes in the Sabbath’s heritage and that their study of the Jewish Sabbath shaped their conceptions of rest and labor, liberty and slavery, land use, and marital and sexual unions. I begin the study with the pamphlets of Laudians, Puritans, and religious radicals; move to the lyrics of Robert Herrick and Andrew Marvell; continue on to John Milton’s divorce tracts, Paradise Lost, and Samson Agonistes; and conclude with Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko.
