Assistant Professor English
Eighteenth-century British literature; poetry and poetics; literary theory and criticism; modernities (early and late); psychoanalysis, particularly object-relations; therapeutic reading; pedagogy.

nchudgar@macalester.edu

Neil Chudgar came to Macalester from the University of Chicago, where he received his Ph.D. in English literature. At that institution he taught widely, from the undergraduate core to the Master of Arts Program in the Humanities. He earned his undergraduate degree in philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh.

In his scholarship and in his teaching, Professor Chudgar aims to explore how literary texts help keep their readers and writers in contact with the reality of the tangible world. He is currently at work on The Augustan Touch, a book about the ethics and aesthetics of touching in British literature from the late seventeenth century to 1740. His next book, The Hazard of Loving the Creatures, will investigate the peculiar mode of modern aesthetic experience that we think of (when we think of it) as the “cute”—a form of feeling that seems to have been born in the mid-eighteenth century and has remained a powerful force in Western culture ever since. Both of these book projects are about the ways in which literary language helps modern people think, feel, and believe in relation to the tangible objects that surround us.

Areas of Study

• Eighteenth-century British literature
• Modernities (early and late)
• Poetry and poetics
• Literature and belief
• Literary theory and criticism
• Psychoanalysis, particularly object-relations
• Therapeutic reading
• Pedagogy

2012-2013 Courses

• 18th-Century British Literature (220-01), Fall
• Seminar: Literature and the Sense of Touch (400-01), Fall
• On Sabbatical for Spring Semester 2013

Publications

• "Swift’s Gentleness,” ELH 78, no. 1 (Spring 2011)

Recent Papers

• “Enlightenment and the Resurrection of the Body,” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, March 2009
• “Smooth or Rough: The Ethics of Form in Augustan Poetry,” Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, December 2009
• “Swift’s Gentleness,” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) Annual Meeting, Portland, March 2008
• “Wordsworth as Kitsch” International Conference on Romanticism (ICR) Annual Meeting, Towson University and Loyola College, October 2007

Awards

• Whiting Doctoral Fellowship, Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation (2007-2009)
• Norman Maclean Teaching Fellowship, University of Chicago (2006 – 2007)
• Karen Dinal Award for Excellence in Teaching Academic Writing, University of Chicago (2004)

BA: University of Pittsburgh

PhD: University of Chicago