I am a cultural historian of Western Europe from 17th to 19th centuries. My previous work revisited some key narratives of the modern west: the rise of class society and esp. the middle class; the emergence of the modern self; the supposed retreat of God on the road to modernity; the emergence of a global understanding of culture and religion. Methodologically, I began with the so-called “linguistic turn”, moved to the interface between history and literature, and more recently to that between history and art. Currently I study material objects and art as keys to early modern global history