Select Publications & Conferences
Books
• The Battle over America's Origin Story: Legends, Amateurs, and Professional Historiographers (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).
• The Secret History of the Jersey Devil: How Quakers, Hucksters, and Benjamin Franklin Created a Monster with Frank J. Esposito (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018).
• Searching for Sasquatch: Crackpots, Eggheads and Cryptozoology (Palgrave, 2011). Paperback edition
August 2013.
• Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia (ABC-CLIO/Greenwood, October, 2009).
• Icons of Evolution (Greenwood Press, January, 2008).
• Human Evolution: A Guide to the Debates (ABC-CLIO: December, 2004).
• Henry Fairfield Osborn, Race and the Search for the Origins of Man (London: Ashgate Press,
2002). Nominated for the 2003 History of Science Society, Pfizer Award. Winner of the Bela
Kornitzer Award for best book by a Drew University Alumnus for 2005.
Peer-Review articles
• "Cornelia Horsford and the Adventures of Leif Erikson: Viking Settlements in the Bay State," Historical Journal of Massachusetts 48:2 (Summer 2020): 36 - 59.
• "The Jersey Devil: a Political Animal," New Jersey Studies 1:1 (Summer 2015): 79-103.
• “Richard Owen and the Sea-Serpent,” Endeavour 36:2 (June, 2012):65-68.
• "Entering Dubious Realms: Grover Krantz, Science and Sasquatch" Annals of Science 66:1 January, 2009.
• "Amateur versus Professional: The Search for Bigfoot" Endeavour 32:2 (June 2008):53-57.
• “Maxwell Perkins and Madison Grant: Eugenics Publishing at Scribners,” Princeton University Library
Chronicle LXV: 2 (Winter, 2004):317-341.
Popular articles & essays
• Review of Sharon Hill's 'Scientifical Americans,' Skeptical Inquirer (March/April, 2018):60-61.
• "The Monster of Newark," in Would You Believe it? Karen Stolznow (February 2017): 155-159.
• "The Occult life of Montague Summers," Fortean Times 349 (February 2017): 42-46.
• "The Jersey Devil: The Real Story," Skeptical Inquirer 57:6 (Nov/Dec, 2013):50-53.
• “Stealing Down the Road to Perdition,” Report, National Center for Science Education 30:1-2 (Jan-Apr, 2010):19-20.
• "Were Have all the Werewolves Gone?" Fortean Times 259 (March 2010).
• Review of Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort's anti-evolution board game
Intelligent Design Vs. Evolution. Endeavor, October 2008.
• A visit to the Creation Mega Conference - 2005
"Dem Ole Dry Bones," Fortean Times 202 (October 2005):57.
• "Nuns on the Run," Fortean Times 87 (June 1996).
Scholarly Conferences
• 2021 – Annual BSHS Conference, remote, “Eben Norton Horsford, the Scientific Method and Finding Leif Erikson’s House,” July 14.
• 2020 – NEHA Fall Conference, virtual, “John Thomas Evans and the Search for Welsh Indians in North America,” October 17.
• 2020 – Annual BSHS meeting Aberystwyth University, Wales, “Eben Norton Horsford, the Scientific Method and Finding Leif Erikson’s House,” July. Cancelled due to Plague.
• 2019 – Annual Meeting, New England Historical Association, Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI, October 26, “Nellie Horsford: Forgotten Proponent of the Viking Theory of American Discovery.”
• 2018 - British Society for the History of Science (BSHS) Annual Conference, "Daniel Leeds: Thwarted Astrologer of Colonial America," University College London (UCL), UK, September.
• 2017 - British Society for the History of Science (BSHS) Annual Conference, "Darwin, Owen and the Use of the Monstrous," York University, UK, July.
• 2016 - Toys Through Time: The History of American Fun, "Super Detailed: The End of Model Kits as Toys," Liberty Hall Museum, February 17, Carriage House, Kean University.
• 2014 – NJ350 Forum, November, Kean University as part of 350th Anniversary of the founding of the state of New Jersey. “The Jersey Devil: A Political Animal.”
• 2013 – Annual History of Science Society Meeting, Boston, November, “Richard Owen and the End of Monster Studies.”
• 2013 – 11th Annual Monsters and the Monstrous Conference, Oxford University, UK, July, “The Jersey
Devil: a political animal.”
• 2012 – Literature/Film Association meeting, Border Visions: Borderlands in Film & Literature, Central
Connecticut State University, October, presented paper, “Film Noir, But with Ants: Gangsters and
Monsters.”
• 2011 – BSHS annual meeting, University of Exeter, UK, July, “Paracelsus to Darwin: the migration of
transmutation.”
• 2009 – BSHS annual meeting, University of Leicester, UK, July, “Where Have all the Werewolves Gone?
Darwinian Evolution and the Image of the Monstrous.”
• 2009 – Medical History Society of New Jersey annual meeting, Princeton, NJ, May, “Aristotle’s
Masterpiece: of Midwives and Monsters in America.”
• 2008 – Three Societies Conference (HSS, BSHS, CSHPS) Oxford, UK. July, “Writing Letters about
Monsters: A Scientist responds to Fans.”
• 2007 – History of Science Society annual conference, Washington, DC, November, “Scientific Authority
in Dubious Realms: Grover Krantz and the Anomalous Primates.”
• 2007 – British Society for the History of Science, Manchester, UK, June, “Grover Krantz and the
Anomalous Primates.”
• 2006 – New York State History Conference, Columbia University, NY, “New York and the Origins of the
Creation/Evolution Debate.”
• 2006 – New England Historical Association meeting, Bridgewater, MA., “American Histories:
Changing Views of American National Origins as taught in Schools and Colleges, 1800-1900.”
• 2003 – New England Historical Association meeting, Worchester, Mass., “Eggheads and Crackpots:
Congruencies in Mainstream and Fringe Theories of the Peopling of the Americas.”
• 2002- 2005 – Lecturer, New York Council for the Humanities
• 2001 - History of Science Society annual meeting, Denver, CO. “Racing Out of Central Asia: Henry
Fairfield Osborn and the Origins of Man.”
• 2001 – Max Planck Institute Summer Seminar for Human Origins, Berlin, Germany.
• 1999 - Developed and coordinated the Drew University International Conference on Eugenics;
Eugenics Past and Present: Historic Perspectives & Current Discourse.
• 1999 - Popular Culture Symposium, Kentucky State University, “Moon Men and Cloister Women:
Hoaxes and Popular Culture.”