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College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Department of English

Leon Chai

Professor Emeritus

Research Interests

American Literature

Romanticism

19th cent. British & European Literature

Modernism

Critical theory 

Education

BA, Princeton Univ. 

MA + PhD, Univ. of Virginia

Awards and Honors

NEH Senior Fellowship 

Visiting Professor, Peking University (Beijing University) fall 2012

Highlighted Publications

Romantic Theory. Johns Hopkins UP, 2006

Jonathan Edwards & the Limits of Enlightenment Philosophy. Oxford UP, 1998

Aestheticism: The Religion of Art in Post-Romantic Literature. Columbia UP, 1990

The Romantic Foundations of the American Renaissance. Cornell UP, 1987

Recent Publications

The Rise and Fall of Theory. Peking Univ. Press, 2022

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Department of English

608 South Wright Street

MC-718

Urbana, IL 61801

(217) 333-2391

Email: english@illinois.edu

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