“Thersites and the Figure of Deformity in Early Modern Culture,” SCECS, 2008.

“Dr. John Tennent’s Seneca Rattlesnake Root Cure and the Newspapers,” Virginia Forum, 2008.

“The Uses of Ballad and Song in Colonial Newspapers,” ASECS, 2008.

“The Caverns of the Past,” Presidential address, EC/ASECS, 2007.

“The Life of Innate Ideas after Locke,” International Society for Eighteenth Century Studies, Montpellier, France, 2007.

“The Tipling Philosophers,” EC/ASECS, 2006.

“Frances Brooke and the Eighteenth-Century London Literary Market.” Literary London Conference, Greenwich, 2006.

“William Byrd’s Dividing Line Histories and Writing for London Readers.” ASECS, 2006.

“The Journey and the Library: Travel Narrative, Borrowing, and Fabulation in William Byrd’s Dividing Line Histories.” EC/ASECS, 2005.

“Henry Jones the Bricklayer: Shifting Patronage Patterns in the Eighteenth-Century London Literary Marketplace.” Literary London Conference, Kingston-Upon-Thames, 2005.

“The Author vs. the Archive: Historio-graphical Problems in William Byrd’s Dividing Line Histories.” ASECS, 2005.

“Socrates: Song and Dance Man,” EC/ASECS, Fall 2004.

"Exemplary Tales: The Death of Socrates, the Unruly People of Athens, and the Uses of History." British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, January 2004.

“Exploitation, Negotiation, or Libertine Fantasy? William Byrd on Indigenous Sexuality.” ASECS, 2004.

"'The Ocean of all Humane and Divine Learning': Socrates and the Hellenistic Wisdom Tradition." Symposium on Classical, Hellenistic, and Late Antique Texts in the Eighteenth Century." Columbia University, September 2003.

“Bribing Aristophanes: The Death of Socrates in the English attack on the Theatre.” International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2003.

"Byrd's Indians." EC-ASECS, 2003.

"The Illustrated Socrates." ASECS, 2002.

"Observation, Pastiche, and Libertine Self-Presentation in William Byrd's Dividing Line Histories." EC/ASECS, 2001.

"Inborn Character and Free Will in the History of Physiognomy." Physiognomy in Profile: Lavater's Impact on European Culture - an international conference to mark the bicentenary of the death of Johann Caspar Lavater (1741-1801), University of Exeter, 2001.

"Maieusis, Synderesis, and the Life of Innate Ideas after Locke." International Society for Intellectual History." Fall, 2000.

"Biography Reinventing Identity: John Gilbert Cooper's Life of Socrates (1749)." CSECS, Fall 2000.

"Standing up to Warburton: Controversy in John Gilbert Cooper's Life of Socrates (1749)." EC/ASECS, Fall 2000.

"Selling Poetry: Henry Jones the Bricklayer and the Commercialization of Patronage" ASECS, 2000

"Race, Libertinism, and Extramural Opportunity in William Byrd's Dividing Line. SCSECS, 2000.

"Confronting the Evidence: Strategies of Biographical Evasion and Denial." EC/ASECS, Fall 1999.

"Inventing the New Intangible College: C18-L and the Virtual Community of 18th-Century Scholarship." International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Dublin, Ireland, Summer 1999 (round-table on the Electronic 18th Century).

"The Vanishing Playwright: Henry Jones, the Bricklayer-Poet of Drogheda." International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Dublin, Ireland, Summer 1999.

"Harnessing the Tide: Using Electronic Resources to Support Graduate Research Techniques and Bibliography Courses." American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Spring, 1999.

"William Byrd and Transgressive Language: New Documentary Evidence." EC/ASECS, 1998.

"Synteresis, Maieusis, and the Life of Innate Ideas After Locke." EC/ASECS, 1997.

"Passionate Politics: the Example of Ungrateful Athens in British Political Thought." NE/ASECS, 1997.

"'The Air of a Porter': Lavater, Lichtenberg, and the Significance of Physiognomical Detail." ASECS, 1997.

"'A sprightly lover is the most prevailing missionary': William Byrd and Miscegenation." ASECS, 1996.

"Elizabeth and Essex at Mid-Century." SCECS, 1996.

"William Byrd and the Mysteries of Generation." EC/ASECS, 1995.

"William Beckford's Library and Provenance Studies." Rare Books and Manuscripts Section Preconference, American Library Association, 1995.

"Socrates' Basket and Xanthippe's Chamberpot: Significance, Containers, and the Things Contained." EC/ASECS, 1994

"Hibernian Front: Henry Jones the Bricklayer and the Perils of Literary Reputation." ASECS 1994.

"William Beckford's Library: A Database Project." EC/ASECS, 1993.

"'O look there!' Henry Jones the Bricklayer's Tragedy of the Fall of Essex." South-Central Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 1993.

"The Lord Lieutenant Demands the Muse: Irish Political Poetry, 1745." Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 1992.

"Chesterfield in Dublin: the Poets' Tribute." EC/ASECS, 1991.

"Them or Us? Alterity and Reflexivity in 18th-Century Pseudo-Oriental Tales." ASECS, 1991.

"The Face Proclaims the Mind: Giovanni Battista della Porta's De humana physiognomonia." Pennsylvania Consortium for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1990.

"Confounding Categories: Johnson's Reservations About Satire." EC/ASECS, 1990.

"William Beckford and Emblems." 2nd International Conference on the European Emblem, Glasgow, Scotland, 1990 [ACLS Travel Grant].

"Didactic, Catechetical, Obstetricious: Socrates and the 18th-Century Dialogue." South-West Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 1990.

"Ungrateful Athens: Socrates and the Image of the Inconstant Demos." NE/ASECS, 1989.

"Henry Jones of Drogheda, Bricklayer Poet, Poet Laureate?" EC/ASECS, 1989.

"Dr. Johnson's Mistrust of Satire in the Dictionary and the Lives of the Poets." North-East MLA, 1989.

"Socrates the Schoolmaster: Educational Reform and the Uses of History." EC/ASECS. 1988.

"Frances Brooke vs. David Garrick." NE/ASECS, 1988.

"The Marks of Character: Dryden and Physiognomy." NE/ASECS, 1987.

"Dialogue into Drama: Socrates in 18th-Century Verse Plays." 9th International Themes in Drama Conference, 1987

"Socrates as Emblem." International Conference on the European Emblem, Glasgow, Scotland, 1987. [ACLS Travel Grant].

"On Reading Dystopias." NEMLA, 1987.

"Bribing Aristophanes: The Death of Socrates and the Attack on the English Stage." NE/ASECS, 1986.

"The Illustrated Socrates." EC/ASECS, 1986.

"The Naked Beauty of Truth: Fielding, Virtue, and Example." ACCUTE, the Canadian Learned Societies, 1986.

"The Illustrated Socrates." Midday Colloquium, the Folger Institute, Washington, D.C., 1986.

"Such Gemmes in Such Dunghilles: Classical Tradition in the Puritan Sermons of Thomas Brookes." NEMLA, 1986.

"A Tax on Old Maids and Bachelors: The Moral Imperative for Companionate Marriage in Frances Brooke's Old Maid." International Conference on 18th-Century Women and the Arts, 1985.

"Certain Savage Lands: Goldsmith, Emigration, and the Price of Taking Québec." Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 1985.

"Quaker Controversial Literature." NE/ASECS, 1985.

"Reinventing Socrates: Tradition, Illustration, and Text." NEMLA, 1985.

"Fielding on the Naked Beauty of Truth." NE/ASECS, 1984.

"Example and Exemplary Digression in Fielding." EC/ASECS, 1984.

"Bringing Philosophy Down from the Heavens: Socrates Against the New Science." Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 1983.

"Misunderstanding Socrates: Biography, Religion, and Science." EC/ASECS, 1983.

"Cunning and Hypocrisy: The Image of 18th-Century Politics in Dickens' Barnaby Rudge." NE/ASECS, 1983.

"The Double Vision of Nature in Brooke's History of Emily Montague." NEMLA, 1983.

"Sir Walter Scott and the Lives of Dryden." Modern Language Association, 1982.

"Sentimental Transformations: Moral Commonplaces Redirected in Frances Brooke's History of Emily Montague." CSECS,1982.

"Satire and the via media: Anglican Dialogue in Joseph Andrews." McMaster Association for 18th-Century Studies, 1980.

Editing (and Re-editing) Historical Texts, ISECS, 2007; SEASECS 2008

"Transatlantacism: Colonial America was (or was not) essentially British." EC-ASECS, 2002.

"Representing Irishness." ASECS, 2001 (Irish Studies Caucus).

"Dryden and his Versifying and Criticizing Friends." SESECS, 2000.

"Constructing Anglo-Irish Community: Anglo-Irish Poets After Swift." ASECS, 1998.

"Stealing Fire: Appropriating and Transvaluating Classical Authority in the 18th Century." ASECS 2005; ASECS 2004; EC/ASECS 2004; ASECS, 2001; EC/ASECS, 1999; EC/ASECS, 1994 (four sessions); ASECS 1994; EC/ASECS, 1993; ASECS, 1993.

"Irish Poets After Swift." ASECS, 1993.

"Orientalism." EC/ASECS, 1991.

"Cross-Cultural Movements." American Comparative Literature Association, 1989.

"18th-Century English Poetry." NE/ASECS, 1987.

"Philosophical Prose." NEMLA (18th-Century Interdisciplinary Studies), 1987.

"Eighteenth-Century British Literature." NEMLA, 1986.

"Literature and Religion." NEMLA, 1984.