John Plotz specializes in Victorian literature and the novel. His Guggenheim project, Semi-Detached: The Aesthetics of Partial Absorption, is about what it means to get partially drawn into a work of art. In it he asks: When youve half lost yourself in a book, what happens to the half left behind? He is the author of The Crowd: British Literature and Public Politics (California, 2000) and Portable Property: Victorian Culture on the Move (Princeton, 2008; named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title).