I am the Mary Lugton Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Lecturer in History at the University of Melbourne, Australia. My doctoral thesis, completed in July 2022, examined the experiences of British expatriates who lived in the Maghreb between 1660 and 1714, and their influences on diplomatic, economic, military, and cultural relations between Britain and the Maghreb. Emerging from this research, my first book is Britain and the Ottoman Maghreb, 1662-1712: Merchants, Consuls, and Cultural Exchange (Oxford University Press, 2026).
My current project, funded by the Mary Lugton Postdoctoral Fellowship (2024-26), investigates networked trade practices and cultural exchanges between Ottoman Tunis and the Mediterranean world, 1675-1750. I am also working on an ongoing project, Reading the Maghreb in Early Modern Britain, focusing on physical evidence of readership and reception left in early modern English books about the Maghreb.
I have published on the image of the Maghreb in British periodical news, social life and religion among Britons in Ottoman Tunis and Tripoli, and digital historical methodologies. My co-authored book with Tyne Daile Sumner and Rachel Fensham, Cultural Data: The Intimate Analytics of Digital Collections, was published by Routledge in 2026.
I also teach medieval and early modern history across the undergraduate degree, and am available for supervision of honours, MA and PhD theses, as well as for media contact and industry collaboration in my areas of interest, which include include relations between Britain and the Islamicate world, early modern media history, correspondence and merchant networks, material culture and cross-cultural exchange, history of the family, and the histories of religion, migration, expatriation and exile. I enjoy parks, cycling, music, yoghurt, and books.
If you are interested in my work, have a look at my recent publications and talks on this site, visit my University Profile here or get in contact with me via email at nat [dot] cutter [at] unimelb [dot] edu [dot] au.