Jess Keiser

Jess Keiser is an Associate Professor of English at Tufts University. She specializes in 17th- and 18th-century literature, history of science, and philosophy, with a focus on intersections between literary form and scientific thought. Her research explores how Enlightenment-era writers used metaphor and figurative language to bridge gaps between materialist science and human consciousness.

Education: PhD (2013), MA (2009), and BA (2006) in English Literature from Cornell University and Tufts University.

Key publications include Nervous Fictions: Literary Form and the Enlightenment Origins of Neuroscience (2020) and essays on Locke, Hobbes, and the role of metaphor in early neuroscience. Her work bridges literary studies with philosophy of mind and history of science.

Research interests span eighteenth-century aesthetics, eliminative materialism, and the cultural history of the nervous system.