Paul Giles is Professor of American Literature at Oxford University and was the President of the International American Studies Association 2005-2007. His books include Transatlantic Insurrections: British Culture and the Formation of American Literature, 1730-1860 (2001); Virtual Americas: Transnational Fictions and the Transatlantic Imaginary (2002); and Atlantic Republic: The American Tradition in English Literature (2006).