Teaching and Research

Cultural and historical studies of science; social technologies; the body and deviance; cultural and social theory; Europe (Italy and France)

My current project is a collection of essays on writing, automatism, and the self.  My most recent book, The Criminal Body: Lombroso and the Anatomy of Deviance (New York: Routledge, 2003), is focused on nineteenth-century Italian human sciences. My first book, Social Bodies: Science, Reproduction, and Italian Modernity (Princeton University Press, 1994), explored social technologies of reproduction and welfare in interwar Italy.

Although my role as dean precludes regular teaching, I continue to serve on graduate committees. 

Selected Publications

“Graphologics: Handwriting, Character, and Social Danger,” in Illegality and the Making of Italy: Crime Italian Style, ed. Stephanie Malia Hom and Dana Renga (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2026), 191–211

“Comparative Studies of Science and Technology,” in Science, Technology, and Society: New Perspectives and Directions, ed. Todd Pittinsky (Cambridge University Press, 2019), 28­–59

The Criminal Body: Lombroso and the Anatomy of Deviance (Routledge, 2003)

Social Bodies: Science, Reproduction and Italian Modernity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994)