Cynthia J. Klekar
Cynthia J. Klekar
Dr. Cynthia J. Klekar
Associate Professor
Associate Chair
Eighteenth-Century British Literature, Cultural Studies, Cultural Anthropology
Mailing address
Department of English
Western Michigan University
1903 W Michigan Ave
Kalamazoo MI 49008-5331
Office: (269) 387-2600
Location
718 Sprau Tower
Education
Ph.D., West Virginia University (2005)
Biography
Cynthia J. Klekar studied English literature and Creative Writing at the University of Texas, San Antonio, and British Literature and Culture at West Virginia University. At Western Michigan University, she teaches Eighteenth-Century Literature, Restoration Drama, Studies in the Novel, and British Literature II.
Her scholarship focuses on the intersections between gift exchange and capitalism, theories of benevolence, and systems of obligation in the literature and culture of eighteenth-century England. She is co-editor of The Culture of the Gift in Eighteenth-Century England (Palgrave, 2009); her work has appeared in Eighteenth-Century Studies (2010); Philological Quarterly (2008); Eighteenth-Century Theory and Interpretation (2007); The Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies (2006), and Eighteenth-Century Fiction (2005). In 2007, Klekar gave a talk at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the Paula Backscheider Archival Fellowship Award (2010), the Richard H. Popkin Travel Award (2007), and the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Innovative Course Design Award (2004).