Professor Kramnick’s research and teaching is in eighteenth-century literature and philosophy, philosophical approaches to literature, and cognitive science and the arts. His first book—Making the English Canon: Print Capitalism and the Cultural Past, 1700-1770 (Cambridge, 1999)—examined the role of criticism and aesthetic theory in the creation of a national literary tradition. His second—Actions and Objects from Hobbes to Richardson (Stanford, 2010)—considered representations of mind and material objects along with theories of action during the long eighteenth century. Building on this study, Professor Kramnick’s current book project asks what distinctive knowledge the literary disciplines and literary form can contribute to discussions of such topics as perceptual consciousness, created and natural environments, and skilled engagement with the world.