Water-mediated electrochemical nano-writing on thin ceria films

Bias dependent mechanisms of irreversible cathodic and anodic processes on a pure CeO2 film are studied using modified atomic force microscopy (AFM). For a moderate positive bias applied to the AFM tip an irreversible electrochemical reduction reaction is found, associated with significant local volume expansion. By changing the experimental conditions we are able to deduce the possible role of water in this process. Simultaneous detection of tip height and current allows the onset of conductivity and the electrochemical charge transfer process to be separated, further elucidating the reaction mechanism. The standard anodic/cathodic behavior is recovered in the high bias regime, where a sizable transport current flows between the tip and the film. These studies give insight into the mechanisms of the tip-induced electrochemical reactions as mediated by electronic currents, and into the role of water in these processes, as well as providing a different approach for electrochemical nano-writing.

The politicization of indigenous identities in Peru

Until now, scholars have argued that, unlike other Latin American countries with sizable indigenous populations, indigenous politics are largely unimportant in Peru because indigenous-based parties or national-level movements are absent. Rather than focusing solely on the emergence of indigenous parties or movements, which ignores the larger consequence of individuals' indigenous identifications for electoral politics, we argue that it is more important to examine the emergence of indigenous political divisions and their effects on indigenous representation. Using data from the World Values Survey across the presidential elections of 1995, 2001, and 2006, we show that, as indigenous identity has become more carefully defined, indigenous voting divisions have emerged in Peru, and concomitantly, parties have begun to recognize and respond to these divisions.

Exiles, Travellers, Vagabonds:Rethinking Mobility in Francophone Women's Writing

Edited Volume

Making space: English women, letter-writing, and the life of the mind, c.1650-1750

This article uses women's letter-writing from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries to explore the home as a site of female intellectual endeavour. Far from representing a static backdrop to the action of domestic life, the home played a dynamic role in women's experiences of the life of the mind and shaped the ways in which women thought and wrote. Letters were penned in dining rooms, parlours and closets, by firesides, and on desks and laps. In their letters, women projected images of themselves scribbling epistles to friends in order to maintain their mental intimacy. Space was both real and imagined and the physical realities of a hand-written and hand-delivered letter gave way to the imaginative possibilities brought by networks of epistolary exchange and the alternative spaces of creative thought. By reinstating the home more fully in the history of female intellectual experience, a more nuanced view of the domestic arena can be developed: one that sees the home not as a site of exclusion and confinement, but as a space for scholarship and exchange. 

Women, letter-writing and the life of the mind in England, c.1650-1750

Drawing on national and regional letter collections dating from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, this article explores women's experiences of the life of the mind through an analysis of their letter-writing. This study also highlights the shortcomings of the compartmentalised nature of scholarship on women's writing and intellectual lives and proposes the letter both as a beneficial historical source and methodological tool for research on women's mental worlds. By employing an inclusive definition of intellectual and creative life, and eschewing traditional benchmarks of achievement, this article contends that women took a full part in the cultures of knowledge of their time. 

A Cambridge History of Irish Working-Class Writing

This 24-chapter edited collection will be the first major study of the history of Irish working-class writing.

Atlas of European Historiography: The Making of a Profession, 1800-2005 (Writing the Nation)

The collection of the data for this volume formed part of the work of the European Science Foundation project on Writing National Histories. I was a member of the Research Team (1) which produced the volume. I also wrote two contributions for the Atlas. I collected the data and wrote the section on academic historians in Ireland. I also wrote a synthesis of the data on academic women historians in Europe, 1815-2005.

Writing the History of the British Stage, 1660-1900

A monograph on British theatre historiography from its emergence in the Restoration to its foundation as an academic discipline in the early 20th century.