Peter is a Ph.D. Candidate in the department of English. He studies 18th and 19th century transatlantic literature on race, environment, theology, and speculation. His dissertation in progress, Terrors of Superstition and Reason: Speculative Knowledge in the Novel, 1794-1859 narrates the story of how the imaginative qualities of speculative literature embrace and challenge Enlightenment claims to truth, and of the mode’s complex and paradoxical relation to the ideas out of which it arose. Talk to him about Frankenstein, ghosts, demons, automatons, and artificial intelligence. 

Peter is a fellow with The Center for Culture, Society, and Religion as well as a GradFUTURES University Administrative Fellow. There he works as a community-engaged scholar with a focus on public communication of academic ideas. As a Resident Graduate Student for Mathey College's Edwards Collective, Peter coordinates a group of approximately 35 students who have applied to live together in a residential community that celebrates the humanities and creative arts.