I teach modern and contemporary literature at Harvard University, where I am the Harris K Weston Associate Professor of the Humanities. My book, The Self-Help Compulsion: Searching for Advice in Modern Literature was published in 2020 with Columbia University Press. My current writing offers an examination of “being present” as an aesthetic and social imperative. I am currently the British and Anglophone Book Reviews editor for the journal Contemporary Literature.

I can be reached at bblum@fas.harvard.edu