Heather Wayne is a teacher of English and independent researcher with a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Consuming Empire in US Fiction 1865-1930 (Edinburgh University Press 2023). Her research focuses on nineteenth-century US literature, material culture, feminism, visual culture, empire and global history. She has presented her research at the Modern Language Association, C19, the Nineteenth-Century Studies Association Conference, the Society for the Study of American Women Writers Conference, and the Futures of American Studies Institute.