Her scholarship focuses mainly on modernism, and especially its historical, sociological, and philosophical contexts in Ireland, Great Britain, and the global reaches of the British empire. Her first book, Manifestoes: Provocations of the Modern, offers a history and a theory of the manifesto form, beginning in 1640 and focusing on its use by modernist and avant-garde groups. She is completing a book titled The Perfect Hostess: Sociability and Modernism, which studies the salons, at-homes, wild parties, pub crawls, and tea-house poetry groups in the modernist moment.