Caitlin Townsend is a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan in the department of History. She holds an MPhil in Early Modern History from the University of Cambridge and a BA in History from Moravian College. Caitlin’s dissertation research focuses on the collection of fossils and other natural history objects in early modern Britain. She is interested in the activity of collecting as a form of conversion (by disembedding an object and replacing its context), and in other conversions such as the rejection of Aristotelian forms and the adoption of a pro-experiment dogma. She is also interested in critical theories of religion and political theology.