Laura Miller, Ph.D.

Professor of English
School of Humanities College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

678-839-4891
lmiller@westTAr7CqG7zi6YARKIyebjwhkVWYEyU1Gmga.edu

Boyd Building - Room 321
Office Hours
All days: f2f or online by appointment
Fall 2025: MW 11-12 PM; R 11-1

Download curriculum vitae for Laura Miller, Ph.D. in PDF
Laura Miller, Ph.D.

Dr. Miller finished her Ph.D. in 2010 at the University of California, Santa Barbara and has been teaching at West Georgia since fall 2011.

She studies the intersections of literature, media, and science during the eighteenth century. Her first book, Reading Popular Newtonianism: Print, the Principia, and the Dissemination of Newtonian Science, was published by the University of Virginia Press in 2018. Dr. Miller has held fellowships at the Houghton Library at Harvard University, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. She was recently co-investigator on a three-year AHRC-funded grant (£842,708), entitled Libraries, Reading Communities, and Cultural Formation in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic. Details to be found here: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FS007083%2F1. She recently published a state-of-the field review essay covering eighteenth-century literature and science studies in SEL Studies in English Literature, and an essay about the connections between a commission of William Hogarth's, Sir Isaac Newton's nephew-in-law, and nonfamilial legacies, in Histories of Science (UVA Press, 2025).

Dr. Miller is currently working on her second academic book, Eighteenth-Century Reading and the History of Wellness, as well as a trade nonfiction book entitled Ten Elements of The Greatest Love Stories, based on her experience as a writer and teacher. She is also working on an art history mystery novel, titled Imposture.

Please visit https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/5100 to order Reading Popular Newtonianism.

  • B.A., English, Duke University, 1997
  • M.A., English, California State University, Northridge, 2004
  • Ph.D., English, UC Santa Barbara, 2010

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Reading Popular Newtonianism: Print, the Principia, and the Dissemination of Newtonian Science. UVA Press, 2018

“Literature and Science Studies in the Age of Covid-19,” invited state-of-field essay, SEL Summer 2025

“Newtonian Legacies in William Hogarth’s A Performance of The Indian Emperour,” Histories of Science, UVA P, 2025

Essays on Fertility/Fertility Control, Reading and Sexual Wellness, and Daniel Defoe's readers forthcoming in 2026-2027

A selection of recent publications

Personal

Dr. Miller has lived in New York, North Carolina, and California before moving to Georgia. Her favorite things to do outside of academia include spending time with her family, cooking, reading, exercise, and travel.

Current and Forthcoming Projects

“Defoe’s Readers,” invited contribution to the Routledge Companion to Daniel Defoe, ed. Rivka Swenson. In progress.

“Fertility and Fertility Control,” in The Bloomsbury Cultural History of Pregnancy. Ed. Cara Delay. Forthcoming from Bloomsbury Publishing, Forthcoming 2026.

“Books and Bodies: Reading and Sexual Health in Eighteenth-Century Bristol,” Eighteenth-century Libraries Online edited collection; Forthcoming 2026.

Eighteenth-Century Reading and the History of Wellness. Book manuscript in progress.

This project has been supported with grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC, UK), the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Mellon Foundation, the Houghton Library at Harvard University, and the University of West Georgia.

Ten Elements of the Greatest Love Stories, trade nonfiction manuscript in progress.

Imposture, novel manuscript in progress.