I was awarded my first degree by the University of Oxford where I combined the study of German and Ancient Greek. I later continued on to complete a PhD in German philosophy, specifically, the aesthetic thought of Friedrich Nietzsche, at the University of St. Andrews.

I have been at Birmingham since April 2010. Before coming here I worked at the University of Teesside, having previously taught at University College of the Creative Arts and Edinburgh College of Art.

My main teaching and research interests are in the art and architecture of central Europe from 1860 to the present as well as in art criticism, theory and the historiography of art.

Recent publications include: The Vienna School of Art History (Penn State University Press, 2013) and my edited volumes Heritage, Ideology and Identity in Central and Eastern Europe (Boydell, 2012) and Art History and Visual Studies in Europe: Transnational Discourses and National Frameworks (Brill, 2012). I have recently completed a critical study of the role of theories of evolution, the biological and neurological sciences in aesthetics and cultural theory, Crossing Boundaries? Art, Evolution and Neuroscience (forthcoming, 2017). I am currently leading a project funded by the Leverhulme Trust on museums of art and design and the cultural politics of Austria-Hungary in the later nineteenth century (article in the Leverhulme Annual Review at page 26), a follow-up to my earlier work on Viennese art historical thought.