She received her doctorate from Harvard University in 2007. Her book, Playing Smart: New York Women Writers and Modern Magazine Culture (Rutgers University Press 2010) considers the witty personae of women writers of the 1920s like Dorothy Parker and Anita Loos. Keyser has published articles on American literature, periodical culture, and food studies. Her current book project, Artificial Color: Modern Food and Racial Fictions, argues that modern U.S. literature uses the global-industrial food system and the new technologies that come along with it to explore and often challenge racial categorization.