Cynthia Klekar-Cunningham

Dr. Cynthia J. Klekar is an associate professor of English at Western Michigan University.

She studied English literature and creative writing at the University of Texas, San Antonio, and British literature and culture at West Virginia University. At WMU, she teaches Eighteenth-century literature, restoration drama, studies in the novel and British literature.

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).