He is the author of the forthcoming book Postapocalyptic Fantasies in Antebellum American Literature (Cambridge UP, 2017). His essays and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in The New England Quarterly, ESQ, Philosophy and Literature, Nineteenth-Century Prose, Science Fiction Film and Television, Literature in the Early American Republic, the Journal of the Early Republic, and Configurations. In 2016 he was the recipient of both a six-month fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies and the Schachterle Prize from SLSA. John received his PhD in English Literature from Columbia University in 2013.