He received his Ph.D. in June of 2004 from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he wrote his dissertation on the automaton as a cultural and intellectual symbol in the European imagination. Other areas of his interests include the history of science and technology, literary history - especially the use of science fiction for the study of history, global history - especially East Asian - European contact in the early modern period, and Korean history. In addition to articles in numerous journals he is the author of Sublime Dreams of Living Machines: The Automaton in the European Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2010) and a co-editor of Visions of the Industrial Age, 1830 - 1914: Modernity and the Anxiety of Representation in Europe.