I completed an undergraduate degree at Glasgow University and a PhD in Leeds. I then took worked for three years as a fund manager, followed by 18 months as a lecturer in Poland, including 6 months at the Jagiellonian University. I joined Strathclyde in 2001. 

I ask abstract questions about literature: why do we enjoy it; why is it meaningful? I use literary, linguistic and historical analysis as well as cognitive approaches to address these questions. My first two books identified changes in the ways people read and interpreted texts between 1650 and 1750 and why those changes happened. I completed a masters in cognitive science with distinction in 2016 and my work since then has focussed on the cognition of fiction. 

I teach on the undergraduate BA degree in English literature. As well as core class teaching in first and second year, I have designed and taught options on 'Oral narratives and fairy tales', 'Theories of literature and wellbeing', 'Literature, mind and brain' and 'Soviet Literature.